brown sugar cardamom pumpkin flan (custard)

I never get enough pumpkin pie this time of year.  Part of the reason is there so much bad pumpkin pie, most is not worth eating.  I always made my pumpkin pie with a pie crust so thin it was really a question of why is there a crust at all?  With someone in the house who is staying away from gluten again, just make the pumpkin into a flan/custard.  Flan sounds fancier but it is the same thing.

I have to admit that I have collected a few variations to try this year.  There have just been that many recipes.  My favorite has always been the one off the back of the Libby pumpkin can.  But I am open to new ideas.  

This flan is good.  I made it with a meringue but next time I would not.  It is a texture thing.  I like crunch on top of my pumpkin custard.  I usually just sprinkle sugar but I decided to give it a try.  My Beloved likes this meringue (he fussed at me for throwing mine out tonight).  For me, I would stick with a sprinkle of sugar or maybe make some brown sugar macaroons to crumble on top.  It is really a texture thing for me.

And as always, I had lots of help even if Small Mister will not try a bite!

brown sugar cardamom pumpkin flan (custard)

Note:  based on Bakeaholic Mama's pie

15 ounces of pumpkin puree

3/4 cup of hempmilk 

2 eggs

2/3  cup brown sugar 

1 tsp ground cardamom

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tbs vanilla extract

2 room temperature egg whites

2/3 cup brown sugar

1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven 375 degrees Fahrenheit.  Put water on to boil.  Mix the pumpkin, hempmilk, eggs, 2/3 cup brown sugar, cardamom, cinnamon, and vanilla together.  Pour into six ramekins.  Place the ramekins in a fairly deep pan.  Pour the boiling water around them.  Place in the oven for 35 minutes.

While the flans are baking.  Beat the two egg whites until stiff and peaks from.  Add in the salt.  Beat in the sugar.  The egg whites will get glossy.

At the 35 minute mark, dump a large spoonful of meringue on each flan.  Bake for another 15 minutes.

The meringue will puff up and be golden.  It will deflate when it cools.

My Beloved likes this meringue a lot!  The flan is good but the cardamom makes it rich.  I would still say that the Libby recipe is my favorite but this is a nice change.

back from the mountain

We are back from the mountain.  It feels hard this time, especially since the weather here is bouncing between autumn and winter.  I like the colder weather.  I brought back greens for the season here.  Not as many as I would have wished but we had much too much stuff to bring back even though we left stuff on the mountain.  I would have really liked to have brought a whole tree back but there would have no way that I would have been allowed to strap a tree on top of the suburban and who knows what shape it would have been in.  Soon.  I have to keep thinking soon.  Especially when I have such a Monday Monday.

Since I went to a wedding instead of going to SAFF, I bought fiber.  I am spinning yak right now.  It is sooo soft.  It is a bit finiky after working with the last wool I worked with but that happens.  Each new fiber is a learning experience.  I will have to figure out what to crochet with it.  It is so soft I am definitely thinking some hand warmers and maybe a smoke ring but then I think sweater.  Decisions.  Decisions.  My thoughts just keep whirling.

stitching for the mountain

I have been working on dresses to take to the mountain with us.  Everything that I think is crucial to be sewn on the machine has been.  I now have hand stitching to do.  We get to camping or we are on the mountain and I find my hands like to be full.  I pick up embroidery or crochet.  This time I am going to have hemming to do.

I cannot wait to be on our mountain!

new beach/rowing dress

This is my newest dress for the beach and rowing.  Or running around town, especially with a sweater over it and leggings under it.  I took the pattern from the dress I bought in Florida and the fabric is a remnant I found out our local fabric store.  They cut big remnants.  I will not be able to wear it on the mountain next week but I will be able to wear it on and off all winter in Houston.  That is just the weather we get here.  It is very comfortable and I have three more remnants that I can use for this pattern.  One is silk and they all have flowers!  I have to get flowers some how!

carob walnut cookies

We occasionally walk down to the coffee shop in our neighborhood.  There my Beloved got introduced to carob in some of the cookies there.  I will admit that I am not very fond of carob.  My Mom tried to pass it off as chocolate to us when I was small and it just does not work that way for me.  It has its own flavor.  My Beloved does not have those type of bad connotations, so he likes it.

I put together some walnut and carob cookies for him.  His comment was "that's a cookie!"  He keeps munching them.  Small Mister seems to like them a lot as well.  He fell asleep with one in each hand last night.

walnut and carob cookies

1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup sorghum flour

1/2 cup millet flour

1/2 cup almond flour

1/2 cup arrowroot flour

1/3 cup chopped walnuts

1/3 to 1/2 cup carob chips

sugar for rolling the cookies in if you wish.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Cover baking sheets with parchment paper or silpats.

Cream the sugar and butter together.  Mix in vanilla.  Mix in the flours.  Mix in the walnuts and carob chips.  The dough may look more like bits then real dough.  It will press together.

Roll a teaspoon of the dough into a ball.  Roll in sugar if you wish.  Put on the baking sheet.

Bake for 15 minutes or until golden.

That's a cookie according to my Beloved!