Brown Butter Pumpkin Shortbread & One of Those Days

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Brown Butter Pumpkin Shortbread. Finally, a pumpkin cookie that's crispy | ibakeheshoots.com

Ever have one of those days?

One of those…just my luck, stay in bed, bag of of Oreos, watch Die Hard days?

Of course, you have. You’re a human being! Well, as luck would have it, I experienced just such a Crapfest the other day.

I don’t wanna go into details but I was feeling a bit blue. Whenever I get like that my first reaction is to eat/drink my feelings. But if I have an ounce of will power, which is rare, I force myself to get out of the house, out of my head and into my car. So I hopped into P-POS.  P-POS stands for Purple Piece of Shit. Hey, it’s a term of endearment, ok!

So…I was driving along, thinking about how I can make beer and cookies go together, when I slowly came to a red light and noticed some green paper on the ground.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: How slow was this chick going?

Answer: Slow enough to know that green paper was $20.

Needless to write, I pulled over, picked up the twenty, stuffed it in my jeans and took off like my ass was on fire. The rest of a day was a blur, but I remember feeling surprised and relieved. Yes, it was only twenty bucks but that’s a whole lot of Oreos…enough to eat through my feelings properly.

In the future, if Oreos aren’t an option, I hope I will have enough energy to make this Brown Butter Pumpkin Shortbread. I’ve worked on this recipe for a minute because cakey pumpkin cookies are just not my thang. It took a few tries but I finally removed most of the water content, as to produce a crispy shortbread. Here’s how I did it.

  1. Brown Butter. Butter is roughly twenty percent water. When you brown it, the water cooks off.
  2. Pumpkin Butter. Make a dense decadent pumpkin butter.
  3. Thin Cookie. Roll the dough no thicker than 1/3″. I prefer 1/8″-1/4″.

Go on, now. Make some brown butter pumpkin shortbread. It’s a wonderful treat…much like the six bags of Oreos I bought with the twenty that I found in the street.

Brown Butter Pumpkin Shortbread. Finally, a pumpkin cookie that's crispy | ibakeheshoots.com

Brown Butter Pumpkin Shortbread Recipe

Note: Use this recipe for Decadent Pumpkin Butter. I used the glaze from Lauren’s Latest Soft Glazed Pumpkin Sugar Cookies.

Brown Butter Pumpkin Shortbread
 
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Makes ~ 24 cookies, 2¼in
Author:
Serves: 6-8
Ingredients
  • ½ c butter, 113g, browned
  • ⅓ c powdered sugar, 34g
  • 1⅛ c flour, 135g
  • ⅛ t salt
  • ½ c decadent pumpkin butter, 135g
  • ½ t vanilla
  • 1 t ground cinnamon
  • ½ t ground ginger
  • ⅛ t ground cloves
  • ⅛ t ground nutmeg
Instructions
  1. Cook butter on medium high for 3-5 minutes, until it becomes golden. Pour brown butter in a bowl and let cool.
  2. Mix the pumpkin butter and powdered sugar.
  3. Add cool brown butter and vanilla. Mix until fully incorporated.
  4. Mix flour, salt, and spices.
  5. Add dry ingredients to the wet and mix well.
  6. Place dough between two pieces of parchment paper, roll ~1/3in thick and freeze for 10-15 minutes. There's no need to flour the parchment.
  7. Use a 2¼ in ring to cut out cookies. Re-roll scraps and repeat process.
  8. Place cookies on baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 18-24 minutes.
  9. Remove cookies and let cool on rack.
  10. Glaze cookies, if desired.
  11. Remember: The thicker you roll the cookie, the longer it will take to bake. Watch carefully, as they will burn easily.

 

 

Brown Butter Pumpkin Shortbread Photo Notes

by David

This wasn’t fun.  Over the years, Mondo and I have shot a lot of cookies for Mondo’s Morsels and frankly, when it comes to photographing cookies, the creativity tank is on “E.”

The Old Days

Years ago when I first started shooting food, film was my thing.  It’s almost laughable now, but I would use a 24 exposure roll and dedicate 6 shots to each setup.  Film and processing was expensive so this made complete sense.  If I didn’t get the shot in 6 tries ….. tough luck.

With digital, I usually dedicate 10-20 shots per setup.  For this shoot, I was at 100 shots and had gone from bad to average.  The cookies in the cup just weren’t working.  I finally got something usable, but it wasn’t great.

When we finally moved over to the green mat with the cookies on the grate, we got it in 6.  Go figure.

Lighting

The lighting is the same as the Decadent Pumpkin Butter shoot.  Both were done on the same day so I didn’t bother rearranging the strobes.

Lighting setup for brown butter pumpkin shortbread

Technical

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Tamron 17-50mm 2.8
Strobes: White Lightning x1600
Tripod: Manfrotto
ISO: 200
Focal Length: 50mm
Shutter: 125
Aperture: f/11

Decadent Pumpkin Butter & My Problem with Vegetarians

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Decadent Pumpkin Butter with tons of sugar-perfect for making brown butter pumpkin shortbread.

I try to get along with everybody.

I have no problems with those who attach ‘-arian’ to their preferred foods. I know that there are all kinds: pescatarians, meatatarians, flexitarians(you might have to google this one), etc..

A few of my friends are vegetarian and they bother me a bit. It’s not because they don’t eat meat. I mean…people should eat whatever the hell they wanna eat, right? If you tell me you’re a vegetarian, I understand you. Everything’s clear. What you’re saying is “I don’t eat things with a face”. I get it. Then my so called ‘vegetarian’ friends turn around, shove fried fish in their mouths and wonder why I have that wtf? look on my face. Um,  it’s because I’m thinking…wtf?

While sitting in class one day, I asked the girl behind me why this was so. You see, she also refers to herself as a vegetarian but eats fish. She also eats chicken enchiladas, but that’s a whole other issue altogether…and yes, I gave her my wtf? face.

This fish-eating girl refers to herself as a vegetarian because most people don’t know the meaning of the word ‘pescatarian’.

 pescatarian (noun): one whose diet includes fish, but no other meat

As per Merriam Webster, just in case you didn’t know.

Instead of trying to explain their dietary choices to people, pescatarians exclaim, “I’m a vegetarian.” and bypass the whole here’s-a-list-of-the-things-I-don’t-eat scene. I see. People are dumb ignorant and they don’t want to waste your time or theirs. Gotcha. So I guess my problem really isn’t with the pescatarians, but the idiots to whom they’re constantly explaining themselves. Oops, my bad. Well, at least I already knew the name for people who eat fish, but not meat. Can I have my trophy now, please?

Well, here’s a little something that both vegetarians and pescatarians can enjoy, unless they’re allergic to pumpkin or something: decadent pumpkin butter. It’s Fall and people are crazy about pumpkin butter. I must admit, I am one of those people. Decadent pumpkin butter is loaded with brown sugar. Also, it’s a staple in my house during this time of year. Why? Pumpkin Chocolate Chunk cookies, plain and simple.

Decadent Pumpkin Butter with tons of sugar-perfect for making brown butter pumpkin shortbread.

There are tons of recipes out there for healthy pumpkin butter. There’s even some you can make in you’re Crockpot; but I’m going in the opposite direction for this one. I learned to make my pumpkin butter on the stove. It’s a bit labor-intensive, but it produces the results that I desire.

You see, canned pumpkin puree is perfect for bread and muffins because of its water content, but not so much for cookies. In order to produce a crunchy pumpkin cookie with a chewy interior, you must reduce the water content of your puree. Trust. It’s easy to comprehend…unlike a vegetarian who eats chicken enchiladas. I’ll never understand that.

 

Decadent Pumpkin Butter Recipe

Decadent Pumpkin Butter
 
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Makes ~2¼ cups Pumpkin Butter || Note: This recipe can easily be halved.
Author:
Ingredients
  • 1 large can pumpkin puree, 29 ounces
  • 2 c brown sugar
Instructions
  1. Mix pumpkin puree and brown sugar in a large pan set to medium high heat.
  2. Set your timer for 45 minutes.
  3. In the beginning stir every few minutes.
  4. At about halfway through, turn heat to medium low and stir more frequently.
  5. The pumpkin butter is ready when it has turned a deep orange-brown color and been reduced by about 40%.
  6. Let cool and store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.

 

Decadent Pumpkin Butter Photo Notes

by David

Mondo had little faith in my ability to bring out the beauty of this decadent pumpkin butter, but I was up to the challenge.  This stuff wasn’t going to win any beauty pageants, but with the right props and a little studio lighting, I had confidence I could get the job done.

Setup

Like the nerdy high school girl in the movies who takes off her glasses and suddenly becomes the hot chic, pumpkin butter transforms into something special when hit with the right light.  The key to this lighting is understanding that pumpkin butter is a reflective object with texture.  As such, you’re not really photographing the object, but instead, the reflections on the object.  To make these pretty reflections, I decided to go with a big light.

Lighting

I love the look of a big light, but big light can be expensive.  If I had the dough, I would have had a team of grips set up a giant silk and blast a few cinema lights through it, but unfortunately, that wasn’t an option.  Instead, I went with a  monolight pointed into a wall 45 degrees behind the subject.  Once I had this going, I filled out the set with a 60″ Softlighter for on-axis fill and a white bounce card to reduce contrast.  With this setup, the pumpkin butter became three dimensional with bright specularity on the edges and soft fill light in the crevices.

Wrap Up

The final element came into play with Mondo’s choice of  color.  She threw down a natural wood block and made the most out of a 99 cent orange bowl we found at an estate sale.  It was the perfect choice that tied everything together.  With the color, props, and lighting nailed, I was able to get the final exposure in less than 10 shots.

Set Shot

vegancake-381

Tech Notes

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Tamron 17-50mm 2.8
Strobes: White Lightning x1600
Tripod: Manfrotto
ISO: 200
Focal Length: 50mm
Shutter: 125
Aperture: f/11