Tag: autumn

baking

Take that, pumpkin spice!

wittychild

As soon as the calendar flipped over to October and I could start thinking autumn-y thoughts without feeling like a total weirdo (says the girl who had her first pumpkin spice latte of the year sometime in August), I decamped to my baking buddy’s kitchen to try out a recipe from Ree Drummond for cinnamon apple bread. It wasn’t going to take much more effort to double the recipe so we each got a loaf out of the deal.

The best part? When I first floated the idea by him, he came back with, “I’ll chop the apples!”

No way was I going to pass up that offer. While he diced, I prepared the pans and got the dry ingredients together, and we finished at almost the exact same time. Teamwork makes the dream work!

The recipe name is a little bit of a misnomer: the only cinnamon in it is used to coat the apples.

Once he finished up with his A+ dicing, we got the wet ingredients together, added them to my carefully assembled dry ingredients, and folded in the apples and pecans before divvying it up between the pans.

It’s not super inspiring-looking here, but it gets better. Promise.

Told you!

The recipe recommends baking for an hour-ish, and after half an hour the house smelled like warm apple goodness. It’s hard not to get your hopes up when something smells that good, and luckily, this didn’t disappoint.

He even had a little jar of apricot jam at the ready to be warmed up in the microwave and brushed over the tops of the loaves. I wasn’t convinced that step was necessary – I just figured it would make things sticky, and I don’t like sticky fingers (apologies to the Rolling Stones). But I’m glad he talked me into it! Look at the difference between the glazed loaf (on the right) and the to-be glazed loaf:

They came out perfectly!

This recipe is definitely going in our “make again” pile. It’s moist and flavourful, although we agreed we’d add some cinnamon to the batter the next time (or maybe nutmeg). I’m also told the leftovers make great French toast, and can’t wait to try that the next time.

Thanks for looking! 🙂

Cross-stitch and Embroidery

“Familiar”-ity doesn’t always breed contempt

wittychild

Yes, that’s a bad pun, if it even qualifies as one.  (I’m sure dads the world over are shaking their heads and taking an extra step away from me: “We’d never make a joke that bad.”)

This is just a short one, because I have no real backstory for this, but: just in time for Halloween, I managed to complete “Cat in the Moon” by Handblessings.

Cat in the Moon 1

This stitched up fairly quickly thanks to the negative space for the moon and the half-cross stitch.  I debated leaving the witch charm off because its shiny silver-like finish detracted (in my opinion) from the cat and everything else.  In the end, I painted on a thin coat of black enamel paint: light enough that you can still see the relief on the charm, but dark enough to almost “match”.  It’s just a shade larger than 4″ square, and makes an excellent addition to my minimalist Halloween décor.

Thanks for looking – I hope everyone’s having a happy Halloween! 🙂

baking

For when your blood type is pretty much “pumpkin spice”…

wittychild

It’s one of those terribly “basic” things to admit, but my heart beats a little faster when pumpkin spice latte season rolls around (it must be all that extra caffeine).  In my defense, my infatuation is strictly with the latte, and not the hundreds of other pumpkin spice-inspired items available.  I’ve carefully researched the coffee options, so you don’t have to.  From worst to best:

4. McDonald’s Caramel Pumpkin Spice Latte.  Their pumpkin spice latte used to be good, but the current iteration is far too sweet.  Add to that the general chaos and lousy service, and this is a hard pass.

3. Starbucks.  I think this might have been the original one, but it’s also really sweet and something else – I almost want to use the word “sludgy”, which is something your coffee should never, ever be.

2. Tim Horton’s.  This is saying something.  I’m not a fan of Tim’s overall, but their allegedly handcrafted latte is not wretched.  It doesn’t have a terribly strong pumpkin or spicy flavour, but it’s not gag-inducingly sweet, either.  If you want something warm, creamy, and soothing, this will take the chill off.  (Bonus: The Pumpkin Spice Iced Capp is surprisingly decent, if you can get past the idea of a cold pumpkin drink.  Just stay away from the whipped topping; that stuff could probably survive a nuclear bomb.)

1. Second Cup.  The ne plus ultra of pumpkin spice lattes.  I only wish there were more locations so that I didn’t have to brave the mall every time I want a fix.  These are flavourful and not too sweet, and if you haven’t tried one, you must.  You’ll never drink Starbucks again.

Ahem.  Given that kind of attention to these drinks, it’s probably not surprising that the recipe for Pumpkin Spice Latte Cupcakes from the Brown Eyed Baker called to me.  I cheated just a little bit and used my pumpkin cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World as the base, only with the coffee and spices recommended by the BEB.

I used instant coffee instead of instant espresso powder because that’s what I had on hand.  I also used a bit more than the 4 1/2 teaspoons called for, because it’s not as strong as the espresso.  And although you certainly can dissolve 7 or so teaspoons of instant coffee in 1/4 cup of milk, you certainly should not taste it unless you want to never touch coffee again.  Bleh.  Luckily, by the time it’s mixed in with all the other ingredients, it just lends a nice coffee-ish flavour to the cupcakes without overpowering them.

PSC1

I topped them with the cream cheese whipped cream as suggested in the recipe, and oh: you can’t go wrong with that stuff.  It’s light and fluffy, but doesn’t deflate if it’s out of the fridge for longer than a few minutes.  I’ve probably mentioned this before, but if you have leftover whipped cream, it’s also excellent on toast or gingerbread, or eaten straight out of the container with a spoon.  I don’t judge.  Some caramel sauce and Saigon cinnamon sprinkled on top sealed the deal.

PSC2

They also release really nicely from their liners and stay moist.  Dry cupcakes are the worst!

PSC3

I made these over Thanksgiving weekend, and although I associate with a band of cookie fans, I have never seen a batch of cupcakes disappear so quickly.  This is one recipe that stays in the roster for next year – or, you know, next weekend. 🙂

Thanks for looking! 🙂

Cross-stitch and Embroidery, Other Crafts

Where my witches at?!

wittychild

I’ll skip the whole “Ooh, Halloween!” preamble, because anyone who’s been reading this for a while knows how I feel about it (and if you don’t, check the Halloween tag).  Spoiler alert: I love it!  Obviously, joining the 2018 iteration of the Vintage Halloween Swap on Craftster was a no-brainer.  My partner has received her package, so I figured it was safe to post this now.

My partner’s era of choice was the 1920s-1930s, and “witches” was among her favourite themes.  This might have pushed me just a wee bit outside my comfort zone – my Halloween aesthetic runs toward “cute” and “cats”, and is just a bit more modern – but one of the fun aspects of swaps is trying something you might not ordinarily try.  An Etsy search for “1930s Halloween” yielded, among other things, a high-quality jpeg version of this image:

2018 Swap 4

(This, of course, is a low-quality image courtesy of a Google search.)

She was Art Deco-y and fun, and I decided to interpret her in embroidery.  Using my lightbox, I traced the basic outline in pencil before going over those lines with a transfer pen.  Once the design was transferred to my fabric, I colour-tinted the image before starting the actual embroidery.

2018 Swap 5

Naturally, I didn’t think to take a picture after transferring and before tinting.  This will be a recurring theme.

After setting the crayon, I used a simple backstitch to define most of the image – I had tried stem stitch, because I think it permits more gentle curvature, but it was proving to be too bulky and weird.  I used a bit of satin stitch on the witch’s eyes and mouth, an some French knots to create the polka-dot pattern on her sleeve.

2018 Swap 6

Her hands in the original image reminded me of a Barbie doll’s steel-fork fingers, so I attempted to humanize her a little bit.  Her overall look reminded me of something, too, but I couldn’t figure out what for the longest time, until it hit me: she’s a tad Claudette Colbert-ish,  I think.  Same era, same shot-from-the-left, same well-defined lips…

That’s a regular wood/bamboo embroidery hoop she’s framed in (5″), painted black to really make the colours pop.

When I had gone to Michael’s to pick up the fabric, floss, and hoop for her, I saw a display of unfinished wooden light-up decorations, and lo, they had a witch one.

2018 Swap 1

It did not occur to me to take a “before” picture until after I had started applying yellow paint – I told you that was a recurring issue.

2018 Swap 2

Even after one coat of craft acrylic, she looked pretty good, but this picture definitely showed me the need for a second coat – and that I had to paint the edges black as well.

2018 Swap 3

This picture doesn’t really do it justice – lit up in a dark room, it positively glows.

Consider Halloween crafting season to be officially underway – thanks for looking! 🙂

baking, cooking

Shchi whiz!!

wittychild

Or is that “щi виз”?

Although I’m not thrilled about the cold autumn mornings, I love that the cooler weather means I can break out the soup pot again.  Honestly, I could quite happily eat soup every day, all year round, but (sigh) not everyone shares my obsession with the stuff, so the cooler weather means that the rest of my audience will be equally enthusiastic about a steaming bowl of goodness.

Much to my chagrin, I had never heard of shchi before, but when I found a recipe for it on the Post Punk Kitchen, I knew I had found my next undertaking.

Mmm…soup!  I used parsnips instead of potato or a potato/parsnip combo, and between that and the black pepper found the end result to be quite, well, peppery despite its unassuming appearance.  The dollop of Sour Supreme on top helped immensely to temper it.

But man, er, domestic goddess cannot live by soup alone, right?  Enter Garlic-Dill Bread from Julie Hasson’s Vegan Diner.  As a non-yeasted  bread it comes together quickly, using baking powder and beer as leaveners.  Sending me to the store for beer is a little like sending a nun to an adult novelty shop (Not.  A.  Clue.), but I think I did all right for myself.  I used Fort Garry Dark Ale, but can’t say I noticed either an overwhelmingly positive or negative taste.  (So, yay me!)

The very best part of it all: I have an almost-full pot of shchi in the fridge, ready to be warmed up again for supper tonight.