I know , I know , you guys are probably sick of pumpkin recipes but you are going to want to mix this delicious treat up! /u/CheebaSteeba and I worked together to bring you this amazing fall flavor. We wanted to do something a little different than the traditional apple cider so we decided to make the cider a pumpkin variation. As some if you know pumpkin is kind of a difficult profile to work with, but we were up for the challenge, and,if I do say so myself, we nailed it.
FW Pumpkin Spice - 2%
TFA Pumpkin - 3%
TFA Yam - 1.5%
FA Liquid Amber - 1.5%
TFA Apple - 2.5%
FA Fuji - .5%
Cap Vanilla Whipped Cream - 1.5%
TFA Toasted Marshmallow - 1.5%
Pumpkin Base
Fw Pumpkin Spice - This is a nice, well rounded group of spices. TFA was too harsh and Capella's version, although way better, wasn't quite as soft, if you will, as Flavor West's offering. With FW you get that blend if nutmeg, cinnamon, and allspice without one if flavor jumping out at you.
TFA Pumpkin - As pleasant as FW pumpkin spice is, it doesn't have much if any actual pumpkin flavor . We didn't just want to leave that taste if pumpkin up to power of persuasion so this was a must. TFA pumpkin by itself is a little raw tasting so we enlisted the help of liquid amber to give the pumpkin a more cooked taste.
TFA Yam - This flavor does wonders for the overall pumpkin taste. It is just the sweet starchy flavor that this mix needed. It makes the recipe more mellow and thickens it out.
Cider Part
FA Liquid Amber - This ingredient works well here to provide a sort of cider base with its "cooked fruit" aspect and dark, somewhat spiced, tones, allowing you to take it a number of directions
TFA Apple - This is the main apple flavor we went with as it provides a more "red" type apple flavor and is on the darker side and not overwhelmingly apple.
FA Fuji - Fuji is used here as an accent to reinforce the "apple" aspect of the profile, as well as providing a touch of brightness that the mix needs.
The Cream
CAP Vanilla Whipped Cream - This flavor kind of brings the "whipped cream melted in to the cider" effect and really helps to tame the spice a bit as well as adding a vanilla nuance and sweetness to help round out the spices. We decided on the CAP Vanilla Whipped Cream over the TFA Whipped Cream since the CAP's vanilla aspect played so well off of the different spices that were present in the mix.
TFA Toasted Marshmallow - Works well to tone down some of the spice, give the recipe some velvety body to hold on to, and lend a touch of sweetness.
It was an absolute blast working on this with the cheebster. It is so much fun having someone as knowledgeable as you at mixing to throw ideas off of. I look forward to more mixing ventures with this awesome dude.
Rate it at all the flavors
TFA Yam? How interesting... I believe this is the first time I've seen it used in a recipe
Was an absolute pleasure for me as well, ms Nikon!
It was really fun to work collaboratively on a recipe and I think led to some discoveries that we may not have otherwise made. I feel like the entire process was really a team effort, from deciding on a profile to work on, down to fine tuning the %s; I will say though that the idea of adding the TFA Yam to accent the pumpkin was entirely mlNikon's idea, and I think is a real hidden gem as far as working with pumpkins go. I think it is important and really played to our benefit having a mixing partner that has a similar palate and mixing style to yours, as we could really rely on each other to mix up specific batches and provide good feedback that we could build off of, effectively doubling (or maybe even more) our productivity in developing the recipe.
This looks amazing, you two! Thank you for sharing it. I'm looking forward to seeing that you can create together in the future.
I have been meaning to pick up FW Pumpkin Spice (and FW Ginger) on /u/CheebaSteeba's recommendation to rework my Pumpkindoodle Cookie recipe and will go ahead and grab some Yam while I'm at it and give this a try. Might even slip of that yam into the Pumpkindoodles as well.
I think that would be a good idea, you won't regret it