Addison: Welcome back to another USU Extension Education Highlight. My name is Addison Stoddard, and today I am joined with Theresa Hunsaker, USU Extension professor emeritus from Weber County. Thanks so much for being here, Teresa.
Teresa: You bet, always happy to be.
Addison: We are entering the holiday season, which generally means gatherings and good food. Theresa, you sent me some pumpkin recipes that sound amazing. Would you be able to tell me a little bit about your freezer pumpkin pie and pumpkin snickerdoodles?
Teresa: Those are the two I wanted to start off with, so good job, Addison, but this freezer pumpkin pie I have been making for probably 20 years. It's one that I came across and then have, of course, tweaked it to my liking all these years ago, and it's because I don't love the mouth feel or the texture of regular pumpkin pie, but I love the flavor. This one has cream cheese and brown sugar. You soften the cream cheese, you whip in the brown sugar, you add some cool whip, or you can add whipped cream, if you want. It has some instant vanilla pudding, some pumpkin puree, of course, your pumpkin pie spices like cinnamon, ginger, cloves, or you could use the actual pumpkin pie spice, but the kicker with this one is it is some salted caramel ice cream, or a toffee ice cream, or something kind of along that caramel swirl, toffee idea that also goes into this fluffy, freezer pumpkin pie. Then the best part about it is it has a ginger snap, or you can use Biscoff cookies as the crust instead of traditional graham cracker. I really like this in a spring form pan, but you certainly could put it in a 10 inch regular pie pan, and then again, like I said, it's frozen and it just has that flavor. It is wonderful topped with some cinnamon whipped cream and a little bit of caramel sauce. You can even layer some caramel sauce in the middle as you're layering in the filling. So this truly is one of my all-time favorites, and it's been a hit when I've served it for large groups. One season, I made 15 of these for a party, so it's a hit. The other one is the pumpkin snickerdoodles. They just use a basic snickerdoodle recipe that has pumpkin in it, so it kind of gives it that fun fall flair. Again, it's just a nice, tender, wonderful snickerdoodle with that fun pumpkin flavor added to it. So those are my two favorites to start off with.
Addison: I love that people that don't like the texture of pumpkin pie can still enjoy some pumpkin pie with this recipe. I also noticed that you combined pumpkin with orange and cranberry in your orange and cranberry pumpkin muffins, and I have never heard of that combination before. Can you tell me a little bit more about that recipe?
Teresa: You bet. So, this is a great breakfast muffin on those late mornings when the kids are home from school and and you want it to be a cozy morning. So this is, like you said, a combination of orange rind and some cranberries, as well as the pumpkin, and it's just nice and moist and tender, just like your pumpkin bread would be, but it has that pop of tartness that the cranberries bring into the muffin. My favorite way to top it, and I didn't add it to the recipe, and I guess I should have, is with an orange streusel. So I put a little bit of oatmeal, orange rind, or orange zest, some sugar, and some flour, and just streusel that on top of the muffins. It's great for breakfast with a cup of hot cocoa. It's so yummy.
Addison: That sounds like a great way to start out the day with one of those. The last recipe is the butterscotch pull apart bread, and I saw that you put butterscotch pudding powder in it. Will you tell me a little bit about this and how this recipe works?
Teresa: This is one that I have used for over 40 years, that's how long I've been married. This is before I was married and still single, and one of my roommates introduced me to this. So, some of the listening audience may be familiar with something similar, but you use frozen dinner rolls, some chopped pecans, brown sugar, butter, and then a package of the cook and serve butterscotch pudding, and it just brings in a wonderful fall flavor. I've even made it, just a time or two, by putting some kind of chopped apples in and around the dinner rolls before I pour the sauce that goes over it. Then it raises and you bake it. I make this late at night and let it raise overnight and then it's ready to go and bake in the morning. It's yummy and gooey and wonderful.
Addison: These are definitely recipes that I'm gonna have to incorporate this holiday season. Thank you so much for joining me today Teresa.
