Lunar Eclipse Cookies

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, so I don't usually get a chance to see an eclipse. It's usually foggy or cloudy, but not this morning. I got to experience the full Lunar Eclipse. Pretty spectacular. So here's a recipe for Chocolate Lunar Eclipse Cookies.

This is a great recipe for Chocolate Cookies. Dip half--or however complete you want your eclipse to be-- in melted white chocolate when the cookies have cooled. Lunar Eclipse Cookies!

CHOCOLATE LUNAR ECLIPSE COOKIES

3/4 cups sweet butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup DARK cocoa powder
1 large egg, beaten
1 tsp Madagascar vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup all purpose flour

Directions (lots of refrigerator/freezer steps, but that makes for great cookies)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
1. Cream butter until smooth. Add sugar and mix until light and fluffy. Add cocoa powder and mix until combined. Add egg and vanilla extract. Mix until combined. Add flour. Mix until combined.
2. Wrap dough in plastic wrap in 2 batches and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.
3. Roll dough between two pieces of wax paper, sprinkled with cocoa powder (not flour), to keep from sticking. Freeze dough for 10 minutes.
4. Dip round cookie cutters in a mixture of equal parts flour + cocoa powder (continue for each cookie) before cutting out circles for the moon.
5. Arrange cookies on parchment lined baking sheet. Freeze baking sheet with cookies until firm -about 15 minutes.
6. Bake in pre-heated oven for 10 mins, 12-15 for larger ones. Cool on racks.
8. When cookies are cooled, dip half (or as much as you'd like) in melted white chocolate. Place on parchment paper to harden.

Lunar Eclipse Cookies!

Pumpkin + Chocolate

Halloween is all about Pumpkins for me, so I thought I'd put together some Pumpkin and Chocolate pairings.

Easy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 (15 oz) can of Pumpkin
1 Spice Cake Mix
1 cup of broken high end dark chocolate (or a cup of dark chocolate chips)
Chopped walnuts (optional)

Mix pumpkin and cake mix until blended and moist. Fold in chocolate chips (and walnuts if you're using them). Drop by spoonful on greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes or so.. you'll know when they're done, but start checking at 8 minutes.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins (adapted from Recipe Bazaar)
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 (15-16 ounce) can pumpkin
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups vegetable oil (you'll need this much oil to make these moist)*
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
12 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips (or broken dark chocolate)

In large mixing bowl beat eggs, sugar, pumpkin, vanilla and oil until smooth.
Mix dry ingredients together and mix into pumpkin mixture. Fold in chocolate chips.
Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups 3/4 full.
Bake at 400 F for 16-20 minutes.

To make Lite Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins, USE THIS RECIPE -substitutes applesauce for the oil. You can do this with almost any spice/pumpkin cake, bar, muffin.

Quick and Easy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
2 boxes of spice cake mixes (Duncan Hines)
1 30-oz. can pumpkin (Libby's)
1 - 1/2 cups dark chocolate chips or broken up pieces of dark chocolate

Preheat Oven to 350. Mix together cake mixes, pumpkin and fold in chocolate chips or pieces. Spoon into lined muffin tins--either mini or regular. Fill to the brim, not much rising. Sprinkle some chocolate chip pieces on top. Bake for about 20-25 minutes.

More Chocolate + Pumpkin recipes

CookWomanFood.com has a great recipe for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bars. They're moist and delicious, and you can vary the recipe to cut down on fat.

Real Mom Kitchen has a family recipe for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread.

Don't forget Pumpkin Chocolate Cheesecake. Good all year!

And, Maria at Two Peas and Their Pod posted a fabulous link to Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies! What a great recipe!

Doughmesstic has an incredible decked out pumpkin brioche! She uses it in Pumpkin & Chocolate Toffee Cinnamons Buns with Caramel Cream Cheese Icing (be still my heart!) and gives you lots of inventive uses for this terrific Pumpkin Pie Brioche dough.

Don't miss the Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Loaf on Felicia Sullivan's Blog.

Have a Pumpkin + chocolate recipe you love? Let me know, and I'll add a link.

Chocolate Spiders & Ghouls, Oh My!

A Mini-round-up of Chocolate Treats to bake for my favorite Holiday: Halloween!

Stephanie Jaworski at Joy of Baking.com has a great and easy Chocolate Spiders Recipe using Chocolate Coconut Macaroons, pretzels and candy eyes.

From All Recipes comes Classic Cookie Cut-Outs. Collect your cookie cutters: use a chocolate dough for bats, witches' hats, black cats and spiders. Sugar cookie dough makes perfect pumpkins, owls, ghosts, bones and skulls. Both types can be frosted and decorated (with chocolate). Try making Stained Glass Cookies in Jack O'Lantern shapes with glowing yellow eyes and grins.

• Stained Glass Cookies
• Decorator Frosting
• The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies
• Best-Ever Chocolate Cutout Cookies

Try these Dark Chocolate Spider Cakes from Liz Brooks at Easy Meals Examiner. Great How-To article.

Duff Goldberg makes Chocolate Chip Eyeball MiniCakes. Video! Pumpkin with mini chocolate chips!

Fahrenheit 350: The Temperature at Which Sweets Happen has a great entry on Chocolate Witches Hats and Brooms, both from the Betty Crocker Cookie Cookbook.

Have fun!

photo: Stephanie Jaworski at Joy of Baking.com