Pumpkin Cookies from The Danish Pastry Shop

When Drew was a child one of his favourite treats when visiting his grandparents in Thunder Bay was to eat a marzipan from the Current River Bakery. Drew's Mom is a master baker, so the fact that it was such a treat had more to do with the influence of his cousins who would visit at the same time. When Drew's Mom would travel to Thunder Bay she would always go to the Current River Bakery and bring back marzipans - a nice gesture but not a necessary one as a tray of her brownies or some of her gingerbread men are actually more delicious. Unfortunately on the last few visits, Drew's Mom's return flights have fallen on days when the bakery was closed and purchasing the scrumptious petit fours in advance lead to staleness. A dilemma indeed.

Fortunately The Danish Pastry Shop, 1017 Pape Ave is just down the street from R&D's and they make, though differently shaped (tubular rather than square), magnificent marzipans. Drew agrees to pick some up for his Mom to take back for Drew's sister. That way they will be fresh and at their best having only travelled a short distance.

It is pouring rain but Drew has his orders and sets out. On a Saturday morning The Danish Pastry Shop is busy but people wait patiently while individual orders are packaged and paid for. It is an odd but delightful little shop, selling all kinds of pastries, pies and treats, as well as meat pies and pickled herring imported from Denmark. Drew decides to buy a blueberry danish to eat on the walk back but his eye is also caught by the first of their Halloween treats: pumpkin cookies in the shape of jack o'lanterns. At Christmas the store creates massive magnificent gingerbread houses, for Halloween they go all out with spooky cupcakes and cookies in terrifying shapes and styles.

"What do you think of the cookies?" asks Drew.

"They're delicious," says Raul. "You can tell the difference of a master baker."

"Your cookies are great as well," reassures Drew while remembering the hours Raul spend in the kitchen perfecting Drew's Mom's oatmeal cookie recipe. " They've been doing it for so long that they can probably bake perfectly on auto-pilot. The pumpkin makes them really moist and not as sweet as sugar cookies."

"And we did like that Jamaican pumpkin," muses Raul as he heads for the kitchen.