Excuse the cheesy post title.  They’re the hardest thing to come up with!

One of my favorite autumn fruits is the apple. I know, I know, they’re around the entire year…but they’re the best in the fall.  Ripe, crisp, sweet, and a bit tart.  I remember one of my favorite childhood books saying that you could taste the starlit nights of summer, the bright sunshine of spring, and the crisp, cool days of autumn in a good apple.  Love.

Cooking with apples in the fall is the greatest: that apple smell filling the house is just so homey.  This is one of my favorite apple recipes for fall: not only is it delicious, it turns out beautifully and makes a stunning presentation with the jewel tones of the rhubarb and cranberries, which also happen to give it the perfect amount of tart/sweet combination.

{Photo by Pete McGregor}
(Please excuse my lack of personal photos lately… my camera is still MIA!)

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I’ve never really embraced the warm, pumpkin-y, cinnamon-y flavors of Fall (they make me feel bitter that summer’s over), but I’m coming around in a major way. This month, I’ve discovered the joys of cooking and baking with pumpkin. While kicking myself (really, really hard) for missing out on it for so long, I’ve been making up for lost time, making about half a dozen pumpkin recipes in just the last couple of weeks. If I had to pick a favorite, it would be Pumpkin Whoopie Pies with Cream Cheese Frosting!

(Image by me! Originally posted here)

A whoopie pie is a cake-like sandwich cookie with a creamy filling (in this case, cream cheese frosting). I had never tried one before, so I don’t have much to compare it to, but these were most definitely worthy of the name whoopie! They were also incredibly easy to make, and made me extra happy because I got to use Baked, one of my favorite cookbooks. I highly recommend Baked if you’re interested in creative twists on classic baked goods (i.e. Root Beer Bundt Cake and a cinnamon-y Red (Hot) Velvet Cake).

If you make these, I’d love to hear what you think!

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When I couldn’t be with my little sister to celebrate her birthday recently, I wanted to go all out for her. Yes, I got her the obligatory Anthropologie gift card, but I wanted to give her something else, something she loves more than pretty much anything in the world… CUPCAKES!

One of her faves is chocolate with peanut butter frosting. Even though we couldn’t be together to share the cupcakes, she was totally shocked and thrilled with the blog post I wrote to surprise her that day.

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Over last weekend we celebrated Mr. D’s birthday. Last year, I ordered him the Coconut Cake from the Peninsula Grill in Charleston. Talk about a delectable cake!

This year, I wasn’t feeling the hefty price tag that goes along with the Coconut Cake but felt that I really had to “knock it out of the ballpark” if I was going to live up to his birthday cake memories from when we celebrated 34. I dug far back into my childhood memories banks - I remember my mom making this cake when I was a kid but it doesn’t seem to be written down anywhere! - and recreated a recipe from what I remembered. Three words for you = A.HUGE.HIT

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Last month my darling husband celebrated his golden birthday. And in a moment of weakness I offered to make him any cake in the entire world…from scratch. I’m not sure why I thought this was a good idea but it made sense at the time.

He requested red velvet cake which meant I had to go directly to the expert for a recipe: my Memaw! She makes one of these bad boys a few times per year and I knew her recipe wouldn’t disappoint.

Sure it took me two hours slaving away in the kitchen but the end result was quite pretty. And it didn’t taste too bad either.

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I feel most privileged and honored to have been let in on the best-kept camping secret ever by a new friend of ours, and I’m so excited to share it with you now. Allow me to introduce…hobo eclairs!

So you take a broomstick (clean and unpainted, of course) and rub the end of it generously with a stick of butter. Then take a square of Pillsbury crescent dough (2 perforated triangles together) and wrap it around the end of the broomstick, making sure that the end is sealed. Roast it slowly over the campfire until it’s puffy and golden brown. Make sure you don’t get engrossed in conversation and let it burn!

Once it’s cooked, let it cool for a minute or so, then slide the cooked dough off the stick. Squirt a healthy dose of whipped cream inside, then drizzle (on top or inside) with chocolate syrup.

Brilliant, right?

I recreated this cookie after having something similar at a quaint roadside farmstand. I couldn’t stop thinking about it and had to have a whole batch! Lemon and white chocolate might seem like an untraditional flavor combo, but I promise it works. It more than works, it’s heaven. These have the perfect ratio of sweet to tart and softness to crisp.

These are super quick and easy, too, since the base is a box of cake mix! Takes no more than 5 minutes of prep time, with a big payoff of deliciousness.

Sunshine Cookies
Adapted from My Baking Addiction

1 box lemon cake mix
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/3 c. vegetable oil
zest of 2 lemons
2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp. lemon extract
1/2 c. white chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 375.

2. Pour cake mix into a large bowl. Add in the rest of the ingredients except white chocolate chips. Stir until well combined (Amy’s note: I used my KitchenAid mixer, it was done in about 10 seconds). Gently stir in white chocolate chips.

3. Line cookie sheets with silicone baking mat or parchment paper. Drop by teaspoonful onto the cookie sheets (12 cookies on each sheet, bake in batches as needed). Bake for 7 minutes or until the edges are just beginning to brown. Cool for 2-3 minutes on cookie sheet, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Enjoy!

Makes 30 cookies

With berry season coming to an end, you may have a few last pints of fresh berries that you’re wanting to incorporate into a sweet treat for the weekend. I fell in love with these images from Martha Stewart. Each name below will lead you directly to the recipe on the Martha Stewart website. I hope you have a wonderful and relaxing, labor-free, Labor Day weekend!

American Flag Tart, Summer Shortcake, Berry Pound Cake, Red-White and Blueberries, Star Spangled Shortcake, Red-White and Blue Parfaits

Fair warning - there is just about nothing healthy when it comes to this recipe. But, honestly, this was too good not to share. I actually made this last fall, so while it may seem a bit premature to be planning for apple season, keep this one in your back pocket for when the cooler weather descends upon us. Here in Upstate New York, I’ve already noticed just the slightest hint of orange kissing the edges of leaves on a few trees so fall will likely be here before we know it…

At any rate, last fall M and I were excited to host our first set of out of town visitors, having just recently moved in together after battling the woes of a long distance relationship for more than a year. His brother and sister in-law (AKA our Best Man and Matron of Honor at our recent wedding) and two of our groomsmen came to visit us and check out our new abode for a little Halloween gathering, minus the costumes and candy, but with the addition of great fall foods and timeless Halloween flicks. I mean, The Simpsons are totally timeless, are they not? So I had a whole bunch of apples still lying around from our fun apple-picking adventure a couple of weeks prior, which I had picked with the sole purpose of baking a pie. With visitors on the way I went on a hunt through my recipe box for my tried and true recipe…..only then to discover it was MIA.

So what’s a girl to do when her favorite recipe has somehow stolen out of the recipe box in the middle of the night and lost itself never to be found again? Especially when this girl is very picky about recipes and can spend literally hours reading reviews of recipes online before committing once her mind is set on a specific dish she’d like to prepare? Why I did what any self-respecting girl would do and I cut the crap and called up my girl Martha. Unfortunately, Martha had a prior dinner engagement and couldn’t take my call so I did the next best thing and headed to her website, found what I quickly deemed to be the best classic apple pie recipe and, in the words of Tim Gunn, I made it work. Oh boy, and work it did. Even my mother, who also joined us for the shindig, was raving and my mother is more than a little bit confident about her own pies…and, frankly, she’s not lying. The woman can bake up one hell of a pie.

Yes. Martha calls for tiny pads of butter atop the filling before closing the pie. I told you. No good will come from this recipe aside from your taste buds crying with happiness and gratitude.

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Lemon and any kind of berry is one of my favorite flavor combos. Makes sense, since lemon and berries are both in my top 5 favorite foods/flavors ever (for the record: rice, Asian cuisine, tomatoes, lemons, berries). Ok, I know that listing Asian cuisine is cheating since it’s so broad, but I don’t care, I love it all!

I recently came across this recipe from Deb at Smitten Kitchen using her “Surprise Me” feature. You just click the button and it takes you to a random recipe from Deb’s archives. I’m highly amused by this and have been known to press “surprise me” repeatedly for hours, since I have something to learn from every one of her posts, both about cooking and photography. Whenever I’m bored or can’t sleep, this is my favorite go-to activity.

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