A Long Time Pumpkin

One of my best friends got married earlier this month, and for her bridal shower I made some fall-themed desserts. I made orange velvet brownies (instead of red velvet) cut in the shape of pumpkins and leaves and pumpkin cookies. Both desserts went over really well, but it was the pumpkin cookies that had people asking me for the recipe! Well, here I’m finally getting around to it (it only took two months!)

 

Fall

As much as I dislike cold weather, I love fall. The leaves changing colours, Halloween, the beginning of sweater seasons – they are all reasons I love fall. But one of the main reasons I love fall is apple picking. 

I loved apple picking as a child, and I still love it to this day. I remember as a child going apple picking with my mom and my sister, and my tradition was to pick one apple at the very beginning of the day and spend the rest of the time at the orchard polishing that apple. Then, just as we were about to leave I would eat my polished apple and I swear it was the best apple in the world. 

Usually when I go apple picking, I go a little over board. My goal for apple picking this season was to pick my weight in apples – but luckily that didn’t happen! I only picked 10lbs of apples, but still that’s a lot of apples. So I immediately started baking! I decided to start with the classic Apple Crisp. I love how it makes the house smell wonderfully of cinnamon and apples! Here’s the recipe:

Intimidating!

If you’ve read my previous blog entries, you'll know caramel was the bane of my existence for a while (I’m slowly starting to show it who’s boss...) However, there are other foods that I find extremely intimidating and I worry that if I attempt them, I will just be adding a new bane to my list.

Choux paste, and specifically profiteroles, were one of those foods. 

If you’ve ever seen how choux paste is made, you’d think it was a little weird. There should be no way to make a dough on the stove top and have it work out. And then those little blobs of dough are supposed to become really light and fluffy? It seems impossible.

Well, you’ll be ecstatic to know that it does work and it’s not hard to do! I promise!

Home from Vacay

Wow, it seems like forever since I’ve last posted here, and that definitely makes me a little sad! I began this blog with the hopes of posting at least once a week and sharing my passion for baking with anyone willing to read my ramblings! But  I definitely haven’t been holding myself to that.

Recently I have been finding it hard to find the time to do the writing of the posts, I haven’t had an issue with the baking part! Not only have I been busy finishing my Master’s in Biology (I have officially passed!); I also got a new job and went on vacation for two weeks! I’ll write more about those exciting events in another post. Right now I want to share a recipe I found before I left on vacation.

Pretzels are one of my Mom’s favourite foods. Anytime we go to a Cirque du Soleil show, or any type of circus/show/sports game, she has to get a pretzel. So by proxy, I have come to love pretzels as well. I tried making them once before, but they weren’t true soft pretzels. They didn’t have that dark brown, snappy exterior and the sea salt typical of soft pretzels. So, I decided to try my hand at them again, and boy, were they awesome this time!