Monday's Munchies

Today's post is dedicated to Brenda Medina and Jessi K. Heimdal.  Brenda makes this fabulous pumpkin cake (and I'm not suppose to tell Cass it has mayonnaise in it).  Like cranberries and sage-y dressing this is a seasonal favorite of mine.  Jessie and I share a love for Cinnamon Sugar Toast.  I've taken both of those recipes and turned out one amazing plate of  Monday morning munchies.

This morning's weather forecast was calling for snow showers and a high of 36 for Columbus today.  I'm not really a fan of donuts, but I needed something warm and fuzzy to go with my hot mug of coffee.  I did some internet surfing in my bathrobe to discover that almost all donut recipes I found called for the stuff to be fried, and I didn't have any oil for that.  Plus, I'm in the middle of a small kitchen renovation and am missing my venta-hood for the moment.

I did find a recipe for pumpkin donut holes (from twopeasandtheirpod.com), and that reminded me of Brenda's pumpkin cake which led to this:  Cinnamon Sugar Pumpkin Bites.

Now there are two ways to go about this recipe.  I tweaked the recipe from the donut holes, but you could follow the super simple Medina recipe.

Cinnamon Sugar Pumpkin Bites
1 3/4 cup of flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons pumpkin spice (or you could make your own using 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon, all spice, nutmeg and ginger)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 can pumpkin puree
1/3 cup oil or melted butter, etc..
1/2 cup milk
1 large egg and
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup brown sugar

Super Simple Medina Recipe (SSMR)
1 box spice cake mix
1 can pumpkin puree
1/4 cup mayonnaise

Preheat oven 350. Mix the dry and wet ingredients separately and then combine (unless you are going for the SSMR then just chuck it all into one bowl and mix.  I used a mini-square (bite size) pan with approximately 1 tablespoon of batter into each square. Bake for 20 minutes (you may need to do less time as my altitude calls for longer baking times)  Makes about 48 bites.

Now to add a little Heimdal flair to this recipe.
Melt some butter. I did a stick of butter since I had so many bites to do.
Mix superfine sugar and cinnamon together.  I didn't measure I just did it by looks, but the inspiration recipe calls for 2/3 cups sugar to 2 tablespoons cinnamon.  Mine was heavier on the cinnamon.

Once you have removed the bites from the oven and they are cool enough to remove from the pan without falling apart or burning your fingers, dunk them in the melted butter to coat all sides. Then roll in the cinnamon sugar.

I show a fork in the photo but that is not really how you eat these.  Shovel in with your grubby paws (well maybe wash your hands first) and then lick your fingers. Dunking into the coffee is not only allowed but encouraged.  The fork is to stab people who try and sneak a bite from your plate.