[BOOK] [RECIPE] The Black Pumpkin/Cookies

A dear friend invited me to participate in a spooky cookie bookie event. The idea is that we read a book a week, make a cookie that somehow goes along with the major theme of that piece, and share with the group. Recent events have convinced me that I will not be able to read a whole book each week and may barely be able to slap together a whole batch of cookies without becoming distracted. However, I can't resist the doing my best to join the fun. Since my reading backlog contains an anthology of spooky short stories, I decided to read at least one a week and find or create a recipe that loosely relates to the reading material.

Dean Koontz's The Black Pumpkin got me started on the path of reading and yum. Having read other works by this author, I know his writing to be solid though I am still wary of what content he might slip into the pages. I once read one of his novels that addressed disturbing topics that my innocent young mind still doesn't want to completely understand. While this short story also disturbed me, it featured the normal "bump in the night" kind of creepy as opposed to "mental illness" disturbing that still has me shuddering.

As this was a short story, I fear giving away too much. Thus I offer a few cryptic statements.  I would describe this piece as an allegory of the rottenness of a soul finally showing through the outer shell. It could also be called a cautionary tale about buying carved pumpkins from someone else instead of carving your own. Intrigued enough to give it a read?

Feel free to make some cookies to sweeten your reading as you dive in:



Blackened Pumpkin Sandwich Cookies

These were supposed to be spritz cookies (those uniform little shaped cookies that you whip out with a cookie press), but I had to take a break to feed my little pumpkin and putting the dough in the fridge made it uncooperative, so I altered my method slightly. It gave the cookies more of a terrifying misshapen look that goes well with the story.

1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/3 cup canned pumpkin
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
cocoa
Nutella

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. 
2. Cream butter in mixer for about three minutes.
3. Add sugar and pumpkin pie spice. Scrape sides of bowl a couple of times to fully incorporate the spices into the butter.
4. Add pumpkin, egg, and vanilla and mix until fully blended.
5. Add flour and mix until dough forms.
6. This is where you can pop the dough into your cookie press and press out your perfectly shaped cookies onto an ungreased cookie sheet. I scooped out 1 inch balls of dough and pressed them flat with a fork dipped in cocoa powder (just like you do to make traditional peanut butter cookies).
7. Bake the cookies for 6 to 8 minutes.
8. Allow to cool and fill two cookies with Nutella to make a yummy, dark-souled sandwich.