Pumpkin Gobs (GF)
Cake
2 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup oil
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups pumpkin puree
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups (400g) Bob's Red Mill 1-1 Gluten Free Flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tbsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp salt (table)
6-8 tbsp milk
Cream Cheese Filling (Option 1)
4 oz full-fat cream cheese
1 1/2 tbsp butter
1 3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla
Cinnamon Buttercream (Option 2)
3 oz shortening
2 cups + 2 tbsp powdered sugar
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 tsp vanilla
Cake
Preheat over to 350˚F and prepare two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix lightly packed brown sugar and oil with the paddle attachment until the sugar is saturated. Add eggs and mix until smooth. Add vanilla extract and pumpkin and mix. Scrape the bottom of the bowl to get any compacted sugar. Batter should be smooth and quite loose.
In a separate bowl, combine dry ingredients. Flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and salt. Add to the stand mixer bowl and combine until smooth.
Measure out milk and slowly add until batter is loose enough to drop from a spoon, but still stiff enough to hold it’s shape. Scoop small balls of batter onto a cookie sheet, leaving room to spread.
Bake for 10-12 minutes. Allow to cool before filling.
Cream Cheese Filling
Whisk together cold cream cheese with warm butter in the bowl of your stand mixer. Slowly add powdered sugar to create a thick paste. Add vanilla extract. Continue to whisk on high to fluff up frosting, about 5 minutes.
Cinnamon Buttercream
Whisk shortening in the bowl of your stand mixer to break up and smooth out the shortening. Gradually add powdered sugar and cinnamon. Add vanilla extract. Continue to whisk on high to fluff up frosting, about 5 minutes.
Waaaait! Before you go out to get your last minute Thanksgiving ingredients (with your mask on and being generous about your social distancing space and generally not breathing or touching anything), make sure you grab some pumpkin and cream cheese to make these decadent pumpkin gobs!
Yes, I have two options for filling with these babies. Are they cakes, or cookies? You can make cream cheese filling if you like the classic combo, or go with a sweeter and slightly spicy alternative (especially if you secretly don’t love cream cheese) with a cinnamon flavored buttercream!
The only tricky part of this recipe is how much milk you add at the end, and even that is just a mostly cosmetic thing. The last time I made these I added a little too much ginger and a little too little pumpkin which added up to me having to keep adding more and more milk to get the right consistency. You end up with a smaller circumference of gob but taller. I just prefer the classic look so I like to get my batter thin enough to spread out nicely.
So, you start with brown sugar and oil and mix them together with your paddle attachment to make a wet sand-like thing. You don’t NEED to add the eggs, pumpkin, and vanilla separately, but I like to just to make sure everything is going right. That will mix up really well and leave behind a smooth spaghetti-o’s sauce.
It’s a good thing I take appetizing photos, because my writing doesn’t reflect that very well…
In a large bowl, mix together your dry ingredients. You want everything to get distributed evenly so it’s best to mix these things first before going in the wet mix. I like to use a whisk here. I always make a mess if I use a spoon or spatula, but a whisk can travel through the flour without kicking any up.
This goes in with the sugar mixture and you can just mix until it is all together. The batter is pretty thick at this point. If you go straight to the oven from here, you’re going to get a pretty solid, spike-y dome in the end. So, loosen up the batter with some milk. I used water in a pinch once, and while it was okay for loosening the batter, it evaporated in the oven and left me with some ugly cracks throughout the cake. So, milk is really best here.
Start with 5 tablespoons and gradually add from there. You want the batter to get to the “gloop” stage. No, that’s not a real thing, but it’s kind of right, isn’t it? When you lift the paddle out of the batter, you want the batter to fall off into a plop. Maybe it should be the plop stage. So it shouldn’t be so thin that it continues to run off, but you don’t want it to totally stick either. The weight will make the batter drop after a second or two suspended and should settle a little but not completely melt back into the rest of the batter. You should have a plop still.
I use the #40 Winco scoop to measure out fairly even scoops. If you don’t have one, aim for a ping pong ball size blob. Bake time should only be 10 to 12 minutes. If you’re worried about your consistency, you can just bake one and see how it comes out, like I always wish I did but never do.
As for the filling, when you’re making the cream cheese frosting, you really need to use COLD and FULL FAT cream cheese. I tried neufchatel cheese and it was just far too runny to sit between two cakes. I also made the mistake of letting the cream cheese warm up. That feels like it’s the right thing to do, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not. Too runny. Even putting the running frosting in the fridge for an hour didn’t stiffen it up at all. So just do it right the first time, ok?
And use the whisk! For both fillings. I don’t like to use the whisk attachment because it’s difficult to clean. I can’t just toss it in the dishwasher and forget about it because the metal will oxidize and blech.
Not bad though, right? Sandwich your filling of choice between two cakes and there you have a yummy, cozy gob. Or whoopie pie. Whichever you’d prefer.
I thought I was going to write something profound today. I thought I’d talk about accepting and appreciating change. But I don’t know how. I thought I’d remind us on the hardships people face during the holidays. I think we’re all aware at this point that suicides are more common in the dreary winter, and during the pressure of holidays. But I didn’t know what to say about it. Maybe I’ll discuss how we can care for each other? Or maybe I’ll get into something a bit later, like, what new hobby do you have lately?
Honestly, I don’t feel like I have any great insight on any of it. Is it okay if today I just tell you what I’ve been up to?
I’m listening to Antony and The Johnsons today. Although, I’ll probably switch to the playlist I’ve had running lately which is a sort of Lo-Fi remix of classic video games (Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy…). Antony and The Johnsons is so of calm but there’s also some tension. He has a bluesy voice, like you know he’s felt pain. I just want to make sure I don’t get wrapped up in it too much that I start to also feel pain. The slight spookiness feels good on a rainy morning though.
Jude seems to be particularly naughty this week. I think I’ve said, “He’s grounded” several times in the past couple days. He doesn’t actually do anything terribly bad when he’s naughty, but he has a tendency to get hairballs at night and he’s been better at avoiding furniture and paper and plants. He’s also been crying at night. It sounds so sad, but it’s really just frustrating. He has food, his litter is fine, his water is full. What do you want? He just walks around downstairs, yelling, while we’re trying to sleep. I’m patient with him. I know he doesn’t understand that humans have a much more regulated sleep schedule that cats. I wonder if he wonders how we can stay awake all day without all those naps. He also doesn’t know that it’s not time to go have an adventure right now, or that he will always have his food dish refilled. So I just walk around with him sometimes, wondering what he wants. As weird as it sounds, he does have body language that I understand. When he’s bite-y it’s because he has a tummy ache. He goes to his cupboard when he’s hungry, but he goes there for treats too, and he has several different kinds of treats and is extremely particular about which one he wants at this exact moment, so that’s a tricky one. But at night, it’s usually nothing. He doesn’t lead me anywhere. Is he just lonely? Why doesn’t he just come up to bed? He used to sleep with us at the old apartment, but he hasn’t since we moved. I’ve brought a bed up for him and brought him up with me, but he gets spooked or bored and trots away. What can I do for you buddy?
There are countless reasons why I love our house. Right now, I’m just loving watching the birds. Jude likes it too, but I think he has bad eye sight and struggles to really see them. Or he’s just lazy. There are two different kinds of bird feeders outside our kitchen window so I get to see them when I’m drinking my coffee in the morning. We get a lot of bluejays, nuthatches, and titmouses. Titmice. I’m not sure. The cardinals and wrens were more common in the spring. Maybe they don’t like the food I’ve switched to? I’ve been trying different kinds to see who likes what, and what is most affective in keeping the squirrels out of it. There have been a couple woodpeckers that have stopped by lately too. They’re so funny looking. I never considered myself a birder, but I never really had the opportunity to care either. Despite growing up in the country, we didn’t have any trees close to the house, so birds didn’t really come by that often. I remember pigeons holing up in the old, broken roof of the porch. I remember not being allowed to go near that part of the house because it was so rickety that it was dangerous. I don’t remember it coming down, but I do remember my dad building the new porch. No pigeons in that one. Just bees sometimes.
It seems kind of silly to spend so much on our backyard wildlife. Birds and squirrels mostly. The deer and bunnies and sometimes a groundhog wander through, but we don’t have anything special for them. We have these bird feeders that need to be filled regularly, and we just got a “squirrel house” so the squirrels have some shelter in the winter. I know there are plenty of places in the woods and the trees for them, but we have to take down a tree that I know many of them live in, and I feel bad about taking their home away. Plus, I just want them to be cozy. I saw one of our regulars the other day in the rain and wind and cold and I just wished I could wrap a blanket around him. I know they don’t need people. But, I think I need them. My heart feels so full when I see them take what I have to offer, whether that’s water, peanuts, or a place to sleep.
Ok, making a hard turn here for a minute. Do you ever think about Heaven? I remember when I was young, I had a moment of terror when I considered the idea of eternity. I felt like I was going to throw up. I have been a believer in Christ since I was little, and I’ve always understood that after this life on Earth, I would go to Heaven and be with the guy that made Earth. I knew that was a good thing, but I couldn’t really visualize it. It doesn’t help that basically all artistic renditions of Jesus are some hippie guy with sandals (groooooss). It feels nearly impossible to me to get that image out of my head. Even if I cut his hair and put him in a nice suit, I just feel like, “Who does he think he is??” When my Sunday School teacher asked us to draw what we think Heaven looks like, I was completely blank. White. Right? Rainbows. Clouds. The usual.
In that moment where I imagined eternity, I had one of those life-flashes-before-your-eyes things, but it was afterlife-flashes-before-your-eyes, and it was terrifying. It was SO BORING. Stuck. In white and clouds and singing hymns for literal eternity. Church, for FOREVER. What a nightmare. I’d much rather stay on Earth please. Here I have cats and video games and blankets and cookies.
I had to just shut it out of my head and try to forget it. I hoped that there would be a kind of brain washing that would happen when you die so being in church would actually be great. I mean, if my brain translates it into being fun, what does it matter what it is at that point? I guess my brain wouldn’t be translating. My soul, I guess?
Over the years, I tried to just accept that I can’t imagine it. Heaven is an idea that it so beyond my understanding, there’s no point in thinking about it. Just trust that it’s good. I mean, better than Hell or nothingness at least, right? Sure.
It wasn’t until recently, like the last couple years, that I started to form a new understanding of Heaven. I didn’t have a hard think about it. It would just be passing thoughts that have gradually built itself into something that I think makes more sense.
There are things in life that bring me so much joy.
Birds.
I bet there are birds in Heaven. Birds, and/or some rendition of that sort of bright, weird creature. Something innocent that appreciates me. Something like likes then I give them peanuts and water.
Cats.
Thousands of cats. In a warm pile of fluffy love. And no allergies. And I have the time and love for each of them, and I won’t cry because I wish I could give them all everything they’ve ever wanted, because I can. I know they are happy, and that makes me happy. And they still have sass. Because a cat that isn’t sassy is probably just a robot.
Cookies. Cake. Cotton candy.
And I won’t get fat.
I wonder if I’ll still bake? I love to share. I hope I can bring my latest cake to my neighbor. And they won’t get fat either.
Connections are important. People are. Humans loving humans. Jesus did talk about marriage in Heaven, but I’m sort of confused by it. He said we won’t be married in Heaven, because we will be part of a larger marriage…? Marriage is a reflection of Gods’s relationship with his people. To love endlessly, and to forgive. But marriage is also growing together. We can’t really grow together with God… We grow. Towards him. I feel like, my marriage is an endless journey of growth and understanding. Each day we have a spouse who is slightly different, and we continue to love them in any form they are in. My love for my husband isn’t perfect, but because I love him, I am willing to strive for that perfection. Aren’t our relationships one of the most important and best gifts we receive in this life? Then why is that something we are supposed to give up later? Hmmm, I don’t completely understand. But, even if we aren’t still married, I don’t think our love disappears. I don’t think we’re expected to go our separate ways. I hope he’s still with me. I wonder if my definition of marriage is just something different. Maybe it’s still spiritual but just now a law-based thing. I guess we wouldn’t need the tax benefit anymore. But can’t I still believe that we share an unbreakable bond?
My hope is that in Heaven, my husband and I can stay in bed for days without getting hungry or without the backache or headache I get from sleeping too long. I hope we can melt into each other like silly putty and my feet won’t be cold. If that isn’t true, I would be sad, and I think sadness isn’t something we will have to do anymore.
As you can tell, I still have some conflicting feelings. I’m an introvert in a very extreme way. But I like that. It’s not like I wish I was more social. I like my individuality and my “home-schooled” awkwardness. I don’t want to lose that. But in Heaven there will be a gazillion people who you love and who loves you. That sounds overwhelming. Man, I just don’t know how to consolidate some of this.
It’s not something I fear though. I don’t think I need to have all the answers. I’m not afraid of eternity anymore. Not completely terrified anyway. That whole marriage thing does have me a little worked up now though. But otherwise, I’m reminded that God made this Earth that has so much that gives me joy and that has inspired creativity in me. I’m pretty sure that means Heaven isn’t an empty space with nothing to do. There will still be stories and adventures and funny squirrels and my old dog. No pain won’t mean no feeling, and no sadness won’t mean no excitement.
When my grandma died, I felt like I had a thousand questions I never thought to consider. It was one of those things were it’s like, this happens to people everyday, but not to me. I didn’t have to think hard about it because it didn’t affect me that much. But it made me wonder so many things. I have all these questions about death and the afterlife now and I feel like…she knows now. And that feels so strange. She knows the answer to thousands of her questions. She’s solved this enormous mystery. What is it? What is it like? Do you see me? Do you know everything about me? Or does that not matter where you are? Do you even remember this life? Are you happy?
I didn’t except this to be what I talked about today. Silly birds.
I hope I didn’t freak anyone out by talking about death and eternity. I didn’t mean to!
I hope you enjoy these gobs and despite the state of things, have a lovely Thanksgiving, even if it’s just you and your kitty. Hug him and read him a story.
-Lisa
