This last weekend, I started working on a new apple recipe for the blog. When Fall hits, all I think about are apple or cranberry recipes.
My aunt’s family owns a ninth-generation apple farm, so apples have always been near and dear to my heart. The apple barn was about two miles from my home, so I enjoyed a ton of apple cider and apple cider donuts growing up.
At one point, my uncle bought a slushie maker, and we all fell in love with apple cider slushies. If you’ve never tried one, you need one in your life ASAP! They’re so good.
The more I thought about Fall recipes, I grew curious about how many Fall and Winter recipes I’ve made over the years. The thought sent me down a rabbit hole because I found all the recipes I’ve made since 2010 and was immediately shocked to find over forty recipes that include apple, cranberry, pumpkin, and gingerbread.
Now, I want to make all forty of the recipes because it has been a while since I’ve enjoyed many of them.
I started making recipes on my legacy blog, CafeTerraBlog, which has since been retired. All those recipes now sit waiting to be remade on an external hard drive. It’s possible there are close to 400-500 recipes. It’s going to be so fun to remake them all.
My little trip down memory lane was all because I was thinking about Fall and Winter recipes. Which also made me think about how everyone has a favorite Fall flavor. I know there are those diehard pumpkin spice lovers who get excited the moment August 31st arrives.
Are you a pumpkin spice fan, or do you have a different Fall flavor you love?
Apples
There is one recipe that is my favorite. No other recipe could make me as happy as this one particular recipe. It’s my Grandma’s Apple Crisp. There are so many happy memories wrapped around that amazing dessert. She would make the apple crisp whenever I went home for a visit, and once, she and Grandpa sent me some apple crisp in the mail (yes, it arrived perfect and was still amazing). (You can enjoy her recipe here.)
Fresh apple cake is another recipe I think about when apples pop into my mind. I was working at a cafe when I first made the apple cake. It was packed full of cubed apples and some batter. It was probably one of the best cake recipes I’ve made, but I’m probably partial because I love things loaded with apples.
Pumpkin
The first pumpkin pie I made accidentally had the consistency of mousse and was actually really good. Honestly, I had no idea what I was doing, so I blended all the ingredients for the simple pie and probably blended everything for way too long. Happy accidents are the best.
When I went down that rabbit hole and looked for all the Fall and Winter recipes on my external drive, I discovered I’ve made a lot of pumpkin recipes, and yes, more than even apple recipes.
My favorite way to cook or bake with pumpkins is by roasting a sugar pumpkin instead of buying pumpkin in a can. Do you like to roast pumpkin for your recipes?
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Cranberry
A treat for me is a tall glass of cranberry juice. I adore that tart flavor.
Baking with fresh cranberries is something I also love. Every year, in October, I stock up on cranberries and throw them in the freezer. Usually, I have a few bags that get left behind, which is perfect for when my cranberry cravings hit in the middle of Summer.
The one recipe I’ve made the most over the years is sweet bread with fresh cranberries. I’ve added orange, ginger, or green tea to those sweet bread recipes—so many possibilities.
Gingerbread
For some reason, I have not made hardly any gingerbread recipes. Confession: I wasn’t a huge fan of ginger for a long time. Only recently, I have grown to really love the spice. I need to make some new delicious recipes and pair them with some of my other Fall favorites. Do you have a favorite gingerbread recipe you love to make?
It has been fun taking the trip down memory lane and finding recipes that need to be brought out from the vault and enjoyed by everyone.
Today, my characters inspire so many of my recipes, and I can actually see them making all those Fall and Winter desserts I found. Thankfully, I’m working on a cookbook to make that happen.
If you want to try that delicious Apple Crisp recipe, enjoy it here. Plus, you can meet Eric and Mia from My Candy Apple (Man Card Book Twelve) and see how they enjoyed the recipe in their story. (Start reading the Man Card series here.)
