fall baking

Gourmet Caramel Apples with Homemade Caramel

October 4, 2014 by Jenn

I’ve never made caramel apples before, and in fact, I’ve never even had a caramel apple. I’ve walked by chocolate shops a million times that had the fancy apples in the windows, but for some reason I have never bought one. I probably thought it was too healthy or something . . . all that fruit and all!!

When I first set out to make the caramel, I started out trying the pre-made caramel candies, and melting them down. I tried that 3 times, and had no success. I don’t know what I was doing wrong, but I had failed enough times that I said “Screw it!” and went to scratch! I should have known better and started there! The caramel is deliciously chewy and SO hard to resist dipping into it immediately, but it is HOT when it comes off the stove, so be careful.

Choose a great tasting apple to use for dipping. I went with Honeycrisp and I was worried at first that they would be too sweet with the caramel and chocolate, but they were perfect! When I took the apples to a work function, the thing that my coworkers liked best was the combination of flavours with the type of apple I had chosen.

Choosing which additional toppings to put onto the apples has endless possibilities! I chose three that I thought would make great combinations, but you can change them up however you would want to. My favourite of the three was the peanut butter one. I think it was because of the combination of saltiness of the peanut butter items and the sweetness of the caramel and apple! Whichever one you choose, they’re all delicious!!

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Toffee Pecan Cake INSIDE a Pumpkin

October 1, 2014 by Jenn

Sometimes getting to be an old fashioned baker is just want I need to kick start myself again. I love making cake designs, but sometimes I miss the excitement of a new, flavourful recipe. Feeling the need to experiment with a new recipe, I went in search of a Fall way to spruce it up, after all, I can’t let down my followers on YouTube! They like exciting things!! So, with those requirements in mind, I came up with a Toffee Pecan cake INSIDE a pumpkin!

The toffee pecan cake itself is delicious. The flavour of the pecans and their crunch, combined with the crunch of the toffee bits makes for a delicious cake. You could put any kind of cake inside the pumpkin, but like I said before, I was really wanting to try out a new flavour combination.

Baking a cake inside a pumpkin takes a long time, and it can take an even longer time than “long” (haha,) depending on the size of the baking pumpkin. My pumpkins averaged between 5″-7″ and took between 1.5-3 hours to bake completely through. It will seem for the first hour or so like you didn’t put enough batter in, but the cake rises up through the top of the opening near the end. So, don’t fret like I did. I managed to refrain from adding more batter while the cake was in the oven though, and I’m glad I did. The cake ended up rising perfectly.

The cake stays incredibly moist, despite the amount of time it is in the oven. The pumpkin meat around the outside keeps the cake moist, and the foil wrapped around the outside helps with this as well. When taking the pumpkin out of the oven and off of the baking tray, be careful as it softens a bit while baking.

Finding baking pumpkins proved to be the most difficult task in this recipe. I had to travel to a nearby town, about a 30 minute drive from my home. It was to a market that specialized in local produce from nearby farms and orchards. The baking pumpkins are smaller, and therefore sweeter than a pumpkin used for a jack-o-lantern.

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Filed Under: Cakes, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: baking, baking pumpkins, cake, cake in a pumpkin, fall baking, fall cake, mini pumpkins, pecan, pecan cake, pumpkin cake, squash cake, surprise cake, surprise inside cake, toffee, toffee bits, toffee cake, toffee pecan cake

Homemade Cherry Pie Recipe

September 17, 2014 by Jenn

Until our videos last fall (2013) I had never baked a real pie before. Sure, I had used a premade pie crust, and premade filling, and called it a pie, but looking back, it really wasn’t. My adventures last year with Apple Pie and Pumpkin Pie had given me the courage to knead more dough and attempt a cherry pie! You can find the pie crust recipe in the Apple Pie video.

The thing about cherry pie is that I don’t (well, didn’t) even like it! I don’t know what came over me when I decided that cherry would be the flavour I would go with this fall. What I soon learned though, is that I had never had good cherry pie. Oh, man, when I had my first bite of this pie, I was in love. I find that artificial cherry flavour is one of the worst flavours there are- it brings be back to cough syrup as a kid (and that is not a good thing). Using real cherries for this recipe is a must in my opinion. If you’re stuck you can use canned cherries in a pinch. but I take no blame for pies made with canned cherries!

The sweetness and tartness of cherries can very greatly, so with this recipe, you can adjust the amounts of lemon juice and sugar accordingly. If your cherries are really ripe and sweet, lessen the amount of sugar. If your cherries are sour, lessen the amount of lemon juice, or add additional sugar. The recipe is pretty flexible that way.

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Filed Under: Other Baked Goodies, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: Apple pie, cherries, cherry, cherry pie, Cherry Pie Recipe, Cherry Pie Recipe Filling, fall baking, homemade cherry pie, Homemade Cherry Pie Recipe, homemade pie, pumpkin pie

Gourmet Caramel Apples with Homemade Caramel

Toffee Pecan Cake INSIDE a Pumpkin

Homemade Cherry Pie Recipe

Happiness is Homemade

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Gourmet Caramel Apples with Homemade Caramel

Toffee Pecan Cake INSIDE a Pumpkin

Homemade Cherry Pie Recipe

Happiness is Homemade

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