Ingredients
Directions
Make a day ahead.
In a large frying pan, cook pumpkin puree along with carrot juice, salt, dark brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and ginger. Cook over medium heat at the beginning and lower the flame as it reduces down. Stir often to prevent scorching; it should take 30 minutes. Now, the pumpkin mixture has turned into a flavorful paste losing pretty much half of its initial weight. Let cool to room temperature before using.
In large bowl, mix up flour with baking powder and baking soda. In the food processor, cream butter along with salt, anise seeds, crystalized ginger and sugar. Add a couple tablespoons of flour and add half the pumpkin mixture. Give a few pulses to combine and add the egg and mix. Transfer mixture to a large pastry bowl and add remaining flour. Wrap up cookie dough into a 17''/43cm log. Refrigerate overnight. Unwrap and re-roll into a neat log; no need for extra flour. Place in the refrigerator until ready to use.
Divide cookie dough log into 10 equal portions – each cookie should weight 3 ounces/90 grams. Leave them tall as shown in the video. Keep refrigerated or freeze for later use.
Toast pepitas over the stove, stop when it pops – cool. Throw seeds in a food processor along with a pinch of salt and mix until it turn into paste. Add oil gradually to ease processing; add more if necessary.
In a medium frying pan, turn granulated sugar into brown caramel. Toss in pepitas with salt. Turn heat off and add butter. Transfer mixture onto a silicone mat to cool.
Preheat oven to 375ºF/190ºC. Lower temperature to 350ºF/180ºC if using a fan oven. Place 5 cookies per baking tray and bake one tray a the time. Pre-bake cookies for 5 minutes, remove from oven and flatten cookies using a large glass or cup. Put cookies back in the oven for 7 to 8 minutes – Do not over bake. Gently stuff each cookie with some pumpkin seeds butter, pumpkin seeds praliné (any praliné can be used for these cookies) and pipe a more generous amount of pumpkin mixture. Return cookies to the oven for 5 minutes more. Turn oven off. Top cookies with more dots of pumpkin seeds butter and praliné. Add pieces of pumpkin brittle, chocolate and candied oranges. Put back in the oven for 90 seconds just for the chocolate to melt. Transfer cookies onto a wire rack to cool. Do not refrigerate cookies afterward, but rather leave at room temp. They wont last anyway... Enjoy!
