4 delicious ways to freshen up your pumpkin baking this fall
Cookbook authors around the country share four new autumnal desserts that aren’t pumpkin pie.
School is in full swing, the weather is cooling down, and pumpkins can be found everywhere, from front porches to grocery store displays… All of this points to one thing: the start of the fall baking season!
Instead of celebrating pumpkin season with a traditional pie, try one of these desserts, each sourced from a different cookbook coming out this fall from Molly Baz, Michael Symon, and other notable food writers.
Are you throwing a fall brunch? Try a Pumpkin Bundt Cake with a maple cream glaze to impress your guests. It has all of the traditional pumpkin-pie spices — cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and allspice — but it’s elevated by a maple-mascarpone glaze. The recipe comes from Samantha Seneviratne, a New York food writer whose new cookbook, “Bake Smart: Sweets and Secrets from My Oven to Yours” (Harvest, $35), will be released on November 7.
Looking for a show-stopping bake that is maximalist in nature? Molly Baz, the former Bon Appetit food editor and online-video host whose first cookbook, 2021’s “Cook This Book,” rocketed up The New York Times best-seller list, created the ambitious Pumpkin Cannoli Cheesecake Cake. She’s following up her debut with “More Is More: Get Loose in the Kitchen,” a cookbook that emphasizes her love of bold, bracing flavors — more garlic, more vinegar, more mortadella, more… well, basically everything.
“My pumpkin cake (it’s a cake, let’s just admit it) doubles down on ginger — there’s both freshly grated ginger in the batter and crystallized ginger in the cheesecake filling — because why settle for just one expression of fall’s quintessential ingredient when you can have two?!” Baz is a writer.
Want to make a decadent and chocolaty pumpkin pie? Look to Michael Symon, the grinny, shiny-pated genie of so many reality-food shows, for ideas. He collaborated with coauthor Douglas Trattner on “Simply Symon Suppers” (Clarkson Potter, $35), a collection of 165 recipes that includes a silky chocolate pumpkin pie recipe.
“If a flourless chocolate cake and a classic pumpkin pie had a love child, it would be this silky, sinful dessert,” says Symon. “I made it for Thanksgiving during the second season of (ABC’s) ‘The Chew,’ and it went viral on my social media pages.” You can use a store-bought crust to save time.”
Put some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies in the oven for a simpler, more portable bake. Colleen Worthington, cofounder of Kneaders Bakery and Cafe, which has locations from Nevada to Colorado, provided this recipe.
“(These cookies) are so good,” she continues, “they just may become your tradition as well.”
