I knew it was time to clean the oven when I roasted yams and set off not one, but two smoke detectors. Cleaning the oven is by far my least favourite job. Not only is it messy and awkward, the oven cleaner is foul. But in the end, I was left with one shiny oven. Of course I had to christen the newly cleaned oven by baking a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

October and baking with pumpkin go hand in hand. From pumpkin chocolate chip cookies to pumpkin pie, I'm always searching for a new pumpkin recipe. So you can imagine how excited I was when I got Martha Stewart's cookie of the day email with this recipe for Chocolate pumpkin swirl brownies. I gave the recipe a whirl on the weekend, but wasn’t thrilled by the results. Although the pumpkin portion of the brownie was moist, the chocolate portion was a bit to dry for my liking. If I try making these again, I'll tweak the recipe to make the pumpkin and chocolate is moist and gooey like a brownie should be!