When you go apple picking

The ladies and I went apple picking this weekend. Quintessential Fall activity, right? Well, this is the first time I've done it. The ladies had fun picking up rotting apples from the ground, climbing trees, searching for grasshoppers, sorting A and B apples and deciding if the worm holes were too big to be a B apple.

Now what do you do when you have a giant pile of apples? You make apple desserts, of course.

First I made this pie

Did I take a picture of it? No. Mostly because it was ugly as heck. I used store-bought pie crust, because easy, and had to let my top crust thaw out then sort of mush the double crimped edges together, it looked awful. Tasted great.  Topped it with a drizzle of cream. Swoon. That's the old fashioned-y thing my family does with apple pie and chocolate pudding. Cream. On top. I'm sure it'd be great on lots more things.

This recipe has you par-cook the apples, and I didn't think it went overboard on spices. No idea what variety apple we used. The person in charge didn't know, so I just went with it. I like that it used both cornstarch and tapioca for thickening.

A few days later, my baby and I made apple cupcakes using this recipe. She gathered her own apples specifically for her apple cupcakes. She wanted to make apple frosting, but I convinced her, because of her great love of pancakes, to use this maple frosting recipe instead.  The frosting is different. It was extremely soft. You use an entire cup of real maple syrup. When I dumped it in the mixer, I felt I'd made a huge mistake as it started whipping. So I upped the powdered sugar. Maybe my butter was a little too soft, but it turned out yummy. Just be aware it'll feel like a lot of syrup.

The cupcakes were a hit! People were declaring left and right they want these for their birthday cake. The cake was moist and heavier than a regular cake.

Be aware though....hand-grating apples is not awesome. If you have an electric grater, use it, save your fingers as well as your kitchen from all the sticky bits of apples flying everywhere.

I didn't peel the apples. If you look closely on this picture (full disclosure, I ate this cupcake for breakfast the next day...and it was so good) you can see the red peel. And we topped them with white pearl candies. Yum!

It's never too early to start thinking about Christmas

Yes, I know, you rarely expect posts anymore. I've been embarking on an experiment, of the romance novel kind. If anything happens, I'll keep you updated. But, in the meantime, let's talk Christmas.

It's coming, you know.  We have less than three months.

Mother-in-law, sister-in-law, brother-in-law, you know, those people who you never know what to get? Plus anyone who's into cooking, but has most everything, they don't have one of these!! And people who like to cook and bake love hand-made items. It makes us feel special.

Don't panic, there's still time!!

Get them a hand-made, food grade, personalized, stainless steel cake tester. And yes, I have two of them. Don't be jealous, you can have one. Karen (the lady over at Feral Turtle who hand-makes these) taps into my wild side with the skulls. If you're not into skulls, that's cool, too.

Go check her out at The Feral Turtle, by clicking here and you can have a quick chat about how many you want to order.

The best part, it's not just a cake tester. Can you see it? It's got a strong little magnet so you can hang it on your fridge and not lose it to the dreaded junk drawer. That way you know exactly where it is, when you need it. Plus it adds a little bling to your fridge art. Yes, this is the actual fridge here at the Hearth. Notices, beautiful art and all.

So what did I do? Made a carrot cake to celebrate the specialness. Had to do it. Used this recipe.

Put the ladies to work grating the carrots...might have been a bad idea. Used fresh pineapple. Yum!

Cake tester in action. Worked like a charm and I felt so pretty using it.

Make sure to add the flour to your raisins and walnuts, otherwise they'll sink to the bottom.

Nom, nom, nom.

K, the thing about Karen, she's like my own personal MacGyver. Not even kidding. Not that she's MY personal MacGyver, but since she's my bff, I kind of think of her that way. But you've got to see the crazy stuff she does, woman is freaking amazing. Have you ever even thought about blowing out a wall in your house, and doing it YOURSELF? No. Nobody thinks that. Except for her.

Alright, enough bragging about Karen, but I could keep going, seriously, how about a little bragging about my young.

Gah! Can't even stand the cuteness. My baby decided to make her cousin a mini Pusheen because she won't be able to come to the school party in a few days.

Don't know what a Pusheen is? It's a cat.

So she went down to the craft room, found the right color of fabric, drew out her Pusheen, had mama cut with her big scissors, sewed it together herself and stuffed it with some fluff. 

Had to make it mini so it could fit in this box. That's Pusheen with shades on. Just want to squish her so much!!

Alright, that's enough. Don't want you to get the idea that I'm actually going to start doing this again, regularly.

Love ya more than carrot cake.