Kabocha Squash Cookies
- 30 grams Kabocha squash
- 30 grams Unsalted butter
- 25 grams Sugar
- 1 dash Salt
- 60 grams Cake flour
- 2 grams Cornstarch
- 1 Pumpkin seeds
- Prepare the ingredients: Put the butter in a bowl and allow to come to room temperature.
- Sift the flours together.
- Cut the kabocha squash, with seeds and skin removed, into fairly small pieces and put into a heatproof bowl.
- Loosely cover with plastic wrap and microwave.
- When a toothpick goes through a piece easily, mash up roughly with a wooden spatula or similar.
- Pass the mash through a sieve to turn into a puree.
- (See step 11.)
- Whip the room-temperature butter, and add the sugar in 2 batches, mixing well after each addition.
- When the mixture has turned white and fluffy, add the salt and mix in.
- Mix the pureed kabocha squash into the batter.
- Add the flours in 2 batches.
- Use a rubber spatula to cut it in.
- When the dough has about come together, fold it over itself in the bottom of the bowl, and it won't crack.
- Bring the dough together, wrap up with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.
- You can also freeze it like this.
- The dough is easy to handle, so if you are in a big hurry you can get by without chilling it, but do chill it if you can.
- Divide the dough (it should be around 13g each depending on how moist they are) and roll into balls.
- Press lightly from above so that they are shaped like little buns.
- Preheat the oven to 320F/170C.
- Make indentations in the cookie balls with a toothpick to form pumpkin shapes.
- Decorate each cookie ball with a pumpkin seed.
- Bake the cookies on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet for 17-20 minutes.
- It's best to insert the pumpkin seeds fairly deeply.
- When you put the cookies in the oven it's like sending them out to work in the morning.
- ( `) If the cookies are just lightly colored they're OK. Take them out of the oven, lower the oven temperature to 285F/140C, and put the cookies back in for another 10 minutes.
- If you prefer soft cookies, omit this second baking.
- Line a cookie rack with some paper towels before putting the cookies on the rack to cool.
- This is to prevent the oil in the cookies from getting on the rack.
- Combining the cookies with Kanayan-san's "Whole chestnut cookies"as a fall season gift is very nice.
- Note: I use kabocha squash puree a lot for making sweets or for cooking, so I make a big batch and freeze it.
- I didn't indicate a time for microwaving the kabocha squash for this reason, but you just need to cook it until a toothpick goes through easily.
- I tried sticking the dough together to make a banana cookie.
- The baking time varies depending on how big you make it.
- I gave it a pretty realistic finish...
- The two cookies on the left are persimmons, and the one on the right is a pineapple.
- They're all kabocha squash flavored.
- Decorate the cookies like this for Halloween.
- If you have the energy and will to do go this far, that is.
squash, butter, sugar, salt, flour, cornstarch, pumpkin seeds
Taken from cookpad.com/us/recipes/147573-kabocha-squash-cookies (may not work)