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To Bake a Wedding Cake, Part IV: Testing 1, 2, 3

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Previously:
Part I: A Prologue
Part II: Um, So, What Are We Doing?
Part III: To Do

I’ve spent the last two months baking inordinately large quantities of cake to prepare for the wedding cake I begin baking in t-minus ten days. The flavors of fall permeated my apartment long before the weather did as I tested recipes for sugared pecans, maple cream filling, pumpkin cake, almond cake, and more. Thankfully, I work at a university with a veritable army of cake-loving, high-metabolism college students ready to sample these cakes as they positively burst from my kitchen.

I must admit, overall, I’ve been pretty lucky with first attempts. I, and all of my faithful testers, were over the moon for the very first pumpkin cake recipe I tested, along with the experimental maple cream filling that went with it. I’d already made the almond cake, so I really didn’t need much adjustment there, and a vanilla cake that will compose the tiny top layer (for guests with nut allergies!) was easy enough. There were, however some unfortunate discoveries.

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Apple Cider Maple Caramels

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Perfect Autumn Caramels

Oh dear friends.

October is doing that thing again where it goes by too quickly. It’s my favorite month: the peak of autumn on most of this continent, and I may have mentioned once or seven-hundred times that autumn provides me the greatest joy of any season. A plentiful harvest of food to enjoy in the moment and store for the winter, repressed pigments unleashed in the forests in a glorious display of color, a chance to layer every article of orange, green, purple, and brown clothing I own in endless combinations for my daily attire (it is the only season I feel my wardrobe is remotely fashionable).

And of course, autumn recipes. This one in particular is the pinnacle of fall flavor unity: a basic caramel sweetened with maple syrup and punched up with a quart of apple cider boiled down to pure apple goodness. And now is really the best time to make them because it’s the one time of year you can buy fresh-pressed, unpasteurized apple cider.

Freshly picked apples

And while yes, the primary purpose of my annual expedition is a supply of local fruit to get me through the winter, the added perk is access to this incredible cider. Unpasteurized apple cider, contrary to its grocery store counterparts, is thick, opaque, and must be refrigerated. But it’s filled with the most incredible flavor: you can still taste which varieties were used to press the cider. Most apple orchards sell it, but you can also occasionally find it in specialty grocery stores or farmers markets. Get out there and get some!

I also had a bottle of maple syrup that I bought in Wisconsin. It seemed appropriate to add to this autumn candy, right?

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Cranberry Orange Cheesecake

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I haven’t really addressed the food-elephant in the room of this time of year.

Thanksgiving!

This year, the gathering around our Thanksgiving table was rather small, just little old Brad and me, in fact. But that didn’t stop us from preparing a full-scale Thanksgiving feast. There was cornbread stuffing (well, dressing), broccoli casserole, warm cream biscuits, mashed potatoes, a three-legged turkey with no wings, smooth brown gravy, mini pumpkin cream pies…

and cranberry sauce.

For me, cranberry sauce as a kid was one of two things: a can-shaped block of cranberry plopped on a small serving dish, or my grandma’s favorite cranberry salad. I was never a particularly big fan of either. But as usual, Deb over at Smitten Kitchen piqued my curiosity to try a homemade, incredibly simple cranberry sauce, and I doubt I’ll ever go back. It’s tart and lovely and full of little orange peel surprises all the way through.

Cranberry and orange are two of my favorite holiday flavors, and when combined, they only improve one another. So instead of making a teeny tiny batch for our teeny tiny guest list, I opted for the full batch so that I could play with the leftovers.

But what to make?

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Carrot Cupcakes

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I’m not exactly sure when I made the transition from thinking I hated carrot cake to eyeballing it with lust at bakeries. It seems to be one of those desserts with distinct factions: the lovers, the haters, and the folks who are mostly there for the cream cheese icing. I was somewhere in between those last two.

But whatever triggered this change in taste has permanently embedded carrot cake on my list of desserts to make whenever carrots find their way into my fridge.

For some reason I’ve always strongly associated carrots with fall harvests, not spring ones. Perhaps it’s because they are orange and fit oh so nicely into the autumn palette. I’ll be honest, there are lots of “when food grows” ideas that I’ve had to re-address after moving here. We arrived last August, and I kept waiting… and waiting… and waiting for carrots, storage onions, and potatoes to appear. A couple of vendors had carrots for about two weeks in early November, but that was it.

Recently, however, tables at the market have buckled under the weight of carrots so fresh the dirt still clings to them.


There are SO many recipes for carrot cake out there. Some with pineapple, some have apple sauce, some with a wide range of semi-exotic spices. I decided to try a family favorite from one of my dad’s cousins. It’s simple, but according to my mom it’s “soooooooo good!” Direct quote.

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Winter Wonderland Brownies

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Winter wonderland

Durangoans are particularly proud of our beautiful state around the holidays. While many people send seasons greeting cards adorned with wintery vistas, evergreen trees weighed down with glistening mounds of snow, and woodland animals making their way silently through the drifts, those of us who spend Christmas in Colorado usually have the great fortune of watching those holiday cards come to life around us. This year, the first major snow of the season hit my hometown just a few days before I came home, and a gentle snowfall on Christmas Eve really sealed the deal for a white Christmas.

The Peaks Approacheth

The View

Mountain Vista

Christmas card

Having resided primarily in non-mountainous locations outside of Colorado for the better part of the last decade, I start getting really antsy for snow right around Thanksgiving but rarely actually see any until I’m flying over the Rockies a few weeks later on my way home for the holidays. For my holiday party (I swear, I’m almost done posting recipes from that dang party) in early December, I wanted to pay some small homage to the spectacular winter beauty of my home state, and I also was lacking a chocolate-y dish on my menu.

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Southwest Chicken Pasta

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Southwest Chicken Pasta

A few days ago, I escaped the humid crush of the Eastern United States with my annual return to my childhood home in Southwest Colorado. Each summer, I look forward to this return with great anticipation, but each year I continue to be humbled and amazed by how much I love this place. To be sure, living in the mountain desert has its hardships: this year’s drought is threatening to run our well completely dry, and the cool dry air that normally greats me when stepping off the plane was this year flooded with smoke from the West Fork Fire Complex, a wildfire raging in the high country just an hour away. My parents keep large stock pots in each bathroom so that we can catch the gray water from our showers, haul it outside, and attempt to help our adolescent trees survive the long, dry summer.

Despite all this, I miss the Southwest. I miss watching the summer monsoons boil over the mountains, occasionally releasing precious rain to the parched earth below. I miss the abrupt landscape shifts from spruce tree forests, the sagebrush meadows, and the bare sandstone mesas and canyons. I miss the cultures, celebrations, people, and flavors.

When I’m out to eat, I frequently seek out southwest-y meals on a menu. A few weeks ago I was pleasantly surprised by a meal at a Chapel Hill favorite that I urgently wanted to recreate at home, and after Brad and I completely consumed multiple batches, I’m sure this will remain on my own home menu often.

A Southwest Chicken Pasta

I really don’t know why I didn’t think of this pasta sooner. Perhaps because I so strongly associate pasta with Italian flavors. But friends! I urge you to release pasta from it’s bonds in tomato sauce and alfredo. It is equally at home surrounded by black beans, red peppers, and spicy red chili.

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Chocolate & Raspberry Cream Cookie Sandwiches

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Chocolate & Raspberry Cream Sandwich Cookies

I’ve never been a particularly voracious celebrator of Valentine’s Day. Perhaps I spent too many years as a single teenage girl, pining for the magic of rom com love and commiserating with fellow single teenage girls about the fairy tale love affairs we surely were soon to have. I supposed that Valentine’s Day for those lucky ladies in relationships were whimsically romantic and that I was sure to celebrate this holiday with fervor when I, someday, became an un-single lady.

What’s interesting is that, once I did find a smart lad to be my companion, I virtually stopped caring about Valentine’s Day all together. Those romantic candle-lit dinners at tables with red rose centerpieces were wildly extravagant for college students on a budget (and I was probably in rehearsal anyway). The idea of receiving gushy Valentine’s gifts, which seemed so appealing when I was younger, seemed borderline silly. You’re more likely to find Brad and I ordering pizza in and laughing ourselves to tears watching funny YouTube videos this Thursday night. And you know what? I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Little Valentines

What I do love about Valentine’s Day is the opportunity it offers me to bake pink, chocolatey, heart-shaped little treats to share with the people around me. These cookie sandwiches have it all. Crisp, deeply chocolate cookies sprinkled with course red sugar press together around a layer of creamy icing studded with raspberries. And despite their showy appearance, they are incredibly easy to make.

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Fresh Mozzarella Cheese

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Cheese.

I made some.

This cheese, to be specific.

It’s not like this is one of the most magical things I’ve ever done.

(It is. It is one of the most magical things I’ve ever done.)

A couple years ago, after reading — and being thoroughly inspired by — this book, I really wanted to to try my hand at making cheese. An ancient art, cheese making has sustained and entertained people across the globe for thousands of years. I wanted in. So my parents bought me this basic cheese making kit, which contains all the special ingredients and equipment needed to make both mozzarella and ricotta cheeses. Other than a really big pot, some spoons and bowls, and of course, milk.


Let’s talk about milk. I don’t think I’ve ever bought whole milk before, except with the intention of making cheese.  Because cheese is made up of the proteins and fats in milk, using a milk with higher fat content produces more cheese. Also, you can’t use “ultra-pasteurized” milk to make cheese (at least not this one). Why? The super-high temperatures of ultra-pasteurization denature the proteins in the milk, which means it won’t curdle. Regular old pasteurization is fine, but make sure your milk doesn’t say “ultra”.

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Apple Cider Syrup

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Apple cider. It is,without question, my favorite thing to drink. I’m rather fond of apple cider cold and unpasteurized, straight from an orchard, but I also believe that apple cider is truly at its best served warm, in a cozy little mug, for a soothing drink on cool nights in the fall and winter. From early October to New Years Eve, I need only the tiniest hint of a social gathering to bust out the crock pot and a half gallon of cider and am forlorn when parties I attend elsewhere don’t feature this essential holiday beverage.

The singular challenge I face with my affection for spiced hot cider? Unless I am hosting a party, I simply need one mugful. I’ve tried various packets of instant cider mix, but I usually find them far too sweet and not apple-y enough for my tastes. And the Caramel Apple Spice from Starbucks? Tasty, but not good for the wallet. And again with the too sweet.

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Happy (B)Earth Day, 30 Pounds!

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It’s Earth Day! I try my best to make every day an Earth Day, but I do so love that this pretty planet has a holiday all to itself. Over the years, I’ve celebrated Earth Day in a variety of ways: planting seeds in milk cartons to watch them grow, attending festivals where local food stands front and center, marathoning Wall-E  and Fern Gully, or just getting outside to enjoy the sunshine and fresh air which we are so lucky to have.

This year, I have yet another way to celebrate: today marks the first birthday of 30 Pounds of Apples!

I know a year of blogging isn’t really a huge deal: some of the blogs I read have been pumping out new content for five, eight, or ten years. But a little over a year ago, when I published my first post, I was still trying to convince myself that this idea was sane. As it turns out, the cooking, photographing, gardening, writing, and sharing that go into this site have brought me more happiness than I ever expected.

I’ve spent the last few days reflecting on what I’ve learned over the last twelve months, where I’ve flubbed up, and what I’m looking forward to before the next blog-o-versary comes to pass. There are many methods by which I can sum up the last year, and I want to share a few of them with you.

So without further ado, consider this the first-year highlights reel of 30 Pounds of Apples.

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