Fall baking: Cue the apples and pumpkin
I have slowly and a bit reluctantly let go of summer, inched into the fall season, and started dreaming of fall baking complete with warm spices, apples, pumpkin, pears and maple-flavored everything. I mean, isn’t that what fall is all about? (Okay, maybe some football too.) In my divine order of fall baking, apples come first. After all, apples are equated with teachers and back to school. I also happen to live in the beautiful state of Washington, where apples are aplenty; the state produces over half the Nation's domestically grown apples. Or maybe apples reign first for me because I refuse to give into the societal pressure related to pumpkin spice lattes re-joining the Starbucks menu in late August. Hold on pumpkin, wait your turn. My first little fall baking task was the Zoë François Apple Almond Galette. However, I’m proud to say that I waited until the calendar officially declared it was fall and then the very next day, I baked a pumpkin chocolate snack cake.
Ganache-covered clove-spiced applesauce bread
Everything is better with ganache. And who doesn’t love to say "guh-naash" – that heavenly mixture of heavy whipping cream and decadent chocolate named by the French and used in the best desserts. Despite its fancy name, ganache is simple to make and very forgiving. You can whip ganache and frost cakes with it, roll it into truffles, or sneak it by the spoonful. My favorite is to pour it over a tart or cake in all its glossy gloriousness. So when I started thinking about how to reinvent the applesauce bread that my mother used to make (okay, and I also saw this sweatshirt on @fancysprinkles Instagram - scroll down for pic), ganache was the obvious choice. Voilá. Ganache-covered clove-spiced applesauce bread.