Fall Bounty

Are you ready for fall? Maybe it's already hit you where you are, but it doesn't get here until late November if at all. Sometimes we just skip it and go straight to winter. Southern California winter is boring. It's just chilly and things turn brown. No cool fall colors unless you live in Claremont or one of those places where they've carefully grown some colorful trees. Halloween is usually warm. Actually, it's always too warm on Halloween. I can't remember ever needing a jacket when I was little and we'd go trick-or-treating. That's kind of good, costume-wise, but these days I hate sweating in my costume. It's annoying. It could be worse, of course, and believe me I'm not bummed out on our temperate climate, it's why people move here, but as a creature of the night who refuses to wear shorts....I like cooler temperatures and I love fall.

Starbucks already has its pumpkin latte on the menu. A way too cheerful barista indicated to me that I should try one. Sadly, I had to decline. It was 7:30 am and already 80 degrees! No, fall is not here yet. However, just because it isn't here doesn't mean I shouldn't prepare....

I went to Williams Sonoma to redeem a gift certificate this weekend. I was also hoping to see some of the fall-holiday stuff (Halloween and Thanksgiving). There weren't that many cool Halloween things there, other than black and orange cake decorating stuff. A lot of the stuff they have is for people with little kids, you know, like a goofy vampire spatula, or napkins with an embroidered giggly jack-o-lantern. Not my thing really. But these fall-related things caught my eye:



Yes, that is a spiced pecan pumpkin bread mix, which I'm itching to make. And I couldn't help but also buy the pecan pumpkin butter as well, for when I want to remember the pumpkin bread long after it's gone. It's supposed to be really good on toast. As is the Snickerdoodle spread on the right. No joke, it's like a cinnamon-sugar-brown sugar spread. For a cinnamon toast to die for. I love snickerdoodles. They are cookies that are fluffy like little cakes.


I also bought these pans (like I need more pans, but whatever, they're pretty!) The one on the right is for my pumpkin bread. It has fall leaves and pumpkins molded on it. I'm thinking of serving the bread with cream cheese frosting on the side or maybe piped delicately on the sides of the mold.

The tea cake mold is something I bought because I'm considering making snickerdoodles in that mold. Tea cakes are great, but you can't frost them because you lose the beauty of the mold, so you have to make something that you don't need to frost. Snickerdoodles get tossed in cinnamon and sugar before they go in the oven and don't need any frosting, so I was thinking of doing that. Does anyone know if you can make them in molds like this? They are kind of like short bread cookies, but will they just not cook right in the mold? It's going to be a crazy experiment, smelling all that good cookie smell and maybe not getting good treats at the end. But experiments are my thing. I'll update you if it works. If not I'll probably just say "I haven't had time to try."

I started to search for cookie molds to see if there are particular kinds of cookies that you can put in molds like the tea cake pan. I found some cool vintage replica cookie molds from Blueberry Forest. Check them out!

Lots of cute molds like this one were on the site for individual cookies.

And I loved the rolling pin molds as well.

I tried looking for more contemporary versions of these things, but there isn't really a market for them apparently. I'd love to find some if you know of any.

So with my fall bounty I left the mall a happy lady. Although, with the heat and stuff here in SoCal, I doubt I'll turn on the oven until well after November. Sigh...fall, I wish you were really here.