Ok. So, most of the things I have baked are from recipes I have found. I will tweak recipes here and there; substitute brown sugar for white every now and then, put in more vanilla and cinnamon than called for, add chocolate chips here, take away nuts there, etc. This may seem fine and dandy… but, these recipes still aren’t mine. I didn’t create them! I didn’t come up with my own measurements and special ingredients to make a yummy treat. I want to do that. I want to invent something original. Something that you would be like, “oh, this is definitely Kat’s baking right here.” Don’t get me wrong, I have thoroughly enjoyed the things I have been baking, even if I didn’t write the recipe. And I will continue to use recipes that make smiles spread upon my lovely friends’ and family’s faces. Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut, I think I am going to start being more active about dabbling in creating my own goodies. Seeing as I am on a pumpkin rage, I decided to come up with something that would incorporate the left-over pumpkin puree I had from making pumpkin bread. Just a heads up on this specific recipe, at the time, I wasn’t really thinking about measuring everything, I kind of had to wing it with some of the ingredients, bear with me.
Another bit of background info before I get down to business… I was having a terrible week a while back. Everything that could go wrong did. School was kicking my butt (still is for that matter), my personal life was going all hay-wire and craaaaaaaaaazaaaaaaaaay. I just felt miserable and tired and my housemates picked up on that. I usually like to be as positive as possible, but I was struggling to put a smile on my face that week. Ok, this is all debbie downer business, but it get’s better, I swear. So, I had rehearsal one night, and when I came home, there was this beautiful package placed upon my bed. “What on earth could this be?” I pondered to myself. I saw that the bag was from my FAVORITE baking store yet, SweetWares, and apparently I made some shrill-like orgasm noise as I quickly opened up my gift (according to my housemate Rachel). Inside was an assortment of halloween/fall sprinkles (YES. SPRINKLES. SO BOMB DIGGITY) and a cookie cutter in the shape of a bat. HOW PERFECT WAS THIS GIFT?! This brought my smile back. I was giddy and silly and back to my usual ‘ol self. In all the excitement and happiness, I decided to make sugar cookies (so that I could use both the cookie cutter and the sprinkles). Not only would I make sugar cookies, but I would make bat-shaped pumpkin flavored sugar cookies! I have not heard of such things, and if you have… keep it to yourself. I did make these a couple of times…that’s what you get with trial and error, though both of the versions turned out nicely.
Batkins
Ingredients:
- 1 cup of white sugar
- 1 cup of butter
- 1 egg
- 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
- vanilla extract (1 1/2 teaspoons if you measure these kinds of things)
- 2 1/3 cups of flour (plus more when you add the pumpkin. You don’t want the dough to be too sticky. It’s hard to use the cookie cutter that way).
- 1/2 cup of canned pumpkin puree (I think that is how much I used. You can use more or less, and add extra flour accordingly).
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
- Beat the butter and sugar together until fluffy.
- Add in vanilla and egg and pumpkin.
- Then mix all the dry ingredients together.
- Combine everything. If the dough seems too flimsy or wet, add more flour.
- Roll out dough and use cookie cutter to make shapes (of course I had my bat one).
Bat-Shaped Cookie Cutter 
- Add decorations, or not. Depends on what you want to do. Here are some of the things I tried.
- You can…
-Sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top.
There is cinnamon sugar on there... just doesn't show up well
-Adding any kind of colorful sprinkles.
Sprinkles AND more cinnamon
-Put chocolate chips on top.
You could try making faces too... but I think you'll either need smaller chips or bigger cookies
-Oh the possibilities.
- Then bake for 9-11 minutes.
- Then take them out to cool.
- You can add frosting or dip them in coffee or tea.
- You can share them or hoard them or save them or send them or … really whatever you want to do with them.
ENJOY! oh, and… THANK YOU JESS (the one responsible for all this goodness)! You are wonderful!
