Seasonal Energy, Reassigned

No Pumpkins on the Porch, But Plenty in the Cookies

Hello Style Pantry friends,

This is the first Halloween I haven’t bought a single pumpkin, at least not for the porch. Nothing in my house looks particularly festive. No mums, no skeletons, no stack of gourds by the door.

Luke’s older, and our street is quiet. Decorations, it turns out, are mostly for little ones and neighbors close enough to see them.

So instead, I put the seasonal spirit into the kitchen.

Instead of dragging out the old decorations, I turned to baking. I roasted a small sugar pumpkin, whole with the skin on, no fuss, and folded the puree into a tender shortbread dough. Once baked and cooled, I drizzled each cookie with dark chocolate. They came out soft and earthy, just sweet enough, and better on day two, like they needed a little time to settle into themselves. The second batch was a thumbprint cookie filled with matcha ganache (recipe below). I kept the base simple: a buttery vanilla shortbread, barely sweet, shaped and pressed, then filled with a glossy, green cente…