What's Inside:

• Fall Baking Ideas
• Back-to-school recipes & remedies
• Soup season favorites
• The buns we bake on repeat

🍁 Hello Baking Buddy! 🍁

As the leaves in our front yard slowly start to turn orange and red, I am reminded that this is the beginning of what I lovingly refer to as "Baking Season!"

Crisp, cool mornings and sweatshirt weather just put me in the mood to bake. It's truly my favorite time of year.

🍂 Fall Flavor Trends 🍂

As temperatures cool down, there's nothing better than turning on the oven and indulging in the rich, warm flavors of fall.

🎃 Pumpkin Spice Everything: Using a blend of cozy spices, you can make your own pumpkin spice mix and save money. Skipping the line at starbucks, make your own pumpkin spice latte too!

🔗 Here's all my favorite pumpkin desserts!

🍎 Apple Harvest: Find a local apple orchard near you and pick some delicious red and green beauties. We visit an orchard in Wisconsin every September. They have amazing baked goods and a cider brewery.

🔗 Here's all my favorite apple desserts!

🥧 Warm & Spiced: Warm spices like cardamom, clove, and allspice make every dessert extra comforting. Try these thick and gooey spice brownies, spice cake, caramel pear pie, or spiced cookie sandwiches with milk chocolate filling.

🥒 Squash: Try incorporating your favorite harvest vegetables into your next baked treat! We love double chocolate zucchini muffins, pumpkin bread, and gluten free lemon zucchini oat cake!

🌰 Make It Nutty: Pecans and walnuts enhance almost anything containing classic fall flavors. Toast your nuts first to bring out the best flavors (this is called Maillard browning). Our family loves chocolate pecan pie, maple walnut banana bread, and pecan pie muffins.

✏️🏫 Back-to-School

The following recipes are not only delicious, but easy to prepare ahead of time, helping busy parents save time during hectic weeks!

🍱 Lunchbox Treats: Easy, packable baked goods like carrot muffins, chia pudding, and versatile granola bars are perfect for school lunches. Avoid bringing baked goods with peanuts or peanut butter due to allergies.

🥜 After-School Snacks At Home: These peanut butter and jelly muffins are always a hit here! You can also make your own cheesy crackers too!

🥗 Quick & Easy Weeknight Meals: We love eating soup, salad, and a half sandwich! Here's my recipe for easy no-knead bread that just requires a little planning ahead, but minimal effort. My no yeast bread, however, is ready to eat in an hour!

🎒 My friend Amy at Yummy Toddler Food has tons of ideas for school lunch recipes for kids of any age, so check them out if you're struggling with what to make!

🍊 Turmeric Ginger Shots!

With cold and flu season creeping in, I wanted to share my friend Dana's recipe along. Her and her family swear by these punchy little shots!

She says,"Personally, they’ve helped me dodge a number of colds and generally feel a little less… run-down. Bonus: they’re good for your gut and can calm some inflammation if taken regularly. That said, my belief in these babies is totally anecdotal. The science isn’t totally caught up yet, and my food-is-medicine approach is wholly for prevention, never a cure."

Get this recipe and more at Dana's blog, Killing Thyme.

🥘 Let's Talk Soup...

♻ Eco-friendly Food Tip: To reduce waste in the kitchen, save your produce scraps like the cut-off ends, peels, and stems of vegetables. Freeze them in a zip-tight gallon bag. Once the bag is full, pour the scraps into a pot and boil on low for an hour or two. Voilà! You have homemade vegetable stock - for free! Use this to make any soup or sauce extra flavorful.

Homemade vegetable stock can also be stored in the freezer for up to three months, making it convenient to save and use later.

I use these awesome Souper Cube freezer containers to make freezing, storing, and reheating soups a breeze because they're perfectly portioned.

Here are our favorite soups to make:​
🥕 Curried Carrot Soup made with coconut milk
🍠 Sweet Potato Soup is easy to make using simple ingredients
🍅 Roasted Red Pepper Tomato Soup to pair with grilled cheese
🥦 Creamy Cheddar Broccoli with cauliflower and carrots
🍲 Sauerkraut Soup with kielbasa, bacon, kohlrabi, onion, and dill

P.S. This handy immersion blender (affiliate link) makes soup season so easy and mess-free! Just blend your soup right in the pot and stop when it becomes the perfect consistency.

📅 On The Calendar

🍯 National Honey Month: Incorporate honey into your baking! I love making honey poached figs or using a sticky honey glaze on cream scones. Honey also makes an excellent natural sweetener for your morning coffee or tea.

🐝 Fun fact: A single worker honeybee produces approximately 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime. That means around 22,700 bees are needed to fill a single jar of honey!

🍞 National Cinnamon Raisin Bread Day (Sept 16): Try this recipe for homemade cinnamon raisin swirl bread.

🍰 National White Chocolate Day (Sept 22): This white chocolate cake uses white chocolate in the batter and it's topped with a white chocolate and sour cream ganache too!

🥖 The buns we bake on repeat

I've discovered the secret to making perfectly soft sandwich buns (both wheat and white)... and the best part is... they stay perfectly soft and fresh for DAYS! Five days, in fact!

If you've ever made homemade buns, you'll know they go stale quickly, but not these.

Save these recipes the next time you're making sandwiches or burgers, try the wheat bun or white sandwich bun version.

👩‍🍳 Personal Note 💌

I love serving as a resource for you and strive to constantly learn more and become a better baker every day.

In an ever-changing world of technology, you have the option to find recipes anywhere, so I just wanted to thank you for supporting me and baking my recipes to share with your loved ones.

You are the reason I continue to bake and share the recipes that are truly repeat-worthy. I appreciate you being here.

Happy Baking Season,

Stephanie Gonzalez​
​CEO + Creator​
​Pretty. Simple. Sweet.​

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