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Joy The Baker

Pumpkin Cookies: RevisitedOctober 25

My pumpkin adventures continue.  I think pumpkin is just something I have to get out of my system in order to move on to more enticing Fall foods.  With these cookies, a version of some other out of this world pumpkin cookies, I can fairly say that I’ve got pumpkin out of my system.  All is well.

Here’s what’s going on with Joy the Baker.  I’m gearing up for NaBloPoMo.  What’s that!?  It’s a full month of daily blog posts in November.  Joy the Baker will become a combination of amazing baked treats, holiday baking tips, and a fine cheese oasis.  Cheese?  Yes, I’ll explain more in November.  

I’m going to San Francisco this weekend.  It’s sure to be a dangerous collision of food, drinks, Halloween costumes, and the madness of my little sister.  I’ll bring my camera and share the debauchery with you.  

What are you doing this weekend?  Besides baking these (insanely easy) Pumpkin Butterscotch Cookies?  

   

Pumpkin Butterscotch Cookies

2 cups all-p

Sit and Stay Awhile Apple CrispOctober 23

Some recipes are good enough to serve at the church picnic.  Some recipes are fine enough to take to the family barbecue.  Other recipes you know will satisfy your office coworkers.  Those savages will eat just about anything.

Then there’s the recipe that you pull out of your back pocket when you’re looking for love.

This beautifully simple Apple Crisp recipe is that “get a man (or woman!) and hold on to him (or her!) recipe”.  If you already have that man, consider this your “it’s time for a ring” recipe, or your “sorry I scratched the bumper of our new car” recipe, maybe even the “thanks for working so hard today honey… I made the house smell like warm apples with this apple crisp just for you” recipe.  See,  I’m looking out for you.

This recipe is the perfect balance of warm memories and good love.  The warm apples tossed with sugar and cinnamon beautifully collide with the toasted, crunchy topping.

It’s a dream come true.

So the Bake a Warm Apple Crisp and Get a Man experiment hasn’t yet worked for me.  That’s mostly because I haven’t

Blood and BonesOctober 20

I come to you with these pictures and recipes not knowing whether this combination of treats is awesome or terrifying.  Blood and Bones.

Before we get down to the treats, can I share something with you?  I’m not a big fan of Halloween.  Honestly,  it scares me a bit.  The whole night seems unpredictable and slightly unstable to me, even as an adult.  It’s the costumes.  See, there are two categories of Halloween costumes that just chill me to the bone.

One one hand, there are the girls that use Halloween as an excuse to wear as little clothes as possible.  Are you one of these girls?  Are you dressing up as a ’sexy boy scout’ this Halloween?  What on earth is a sexy boy scout??  I’m scared.  I also don’t like the medical and other uniformed professions you make sexy for Halloween.  I don’t agree, and frankly, I’m frightened.  

There’s also the teenage boys that dress up as murderers with bloody plastic knives and masks.  Teenage boys dressed as murders in the darkness of a Halloween night?  Is it just me being old, or do these kids seem totally out of control?  They seem waaaay too old to be dressing up and run the neighborhood with a pillow case scooping up candy from everyone they can.  Not ok.  Just not ok.  

Wow!   Halloween makes me sound like a grumpy old lady.  

To celebrate my i

Pumpkin Pie BarsOctober 16

Pumpkin is upon us.  

It’s a fact friends.  Deal with it.  

I went a little pumpkin crazy at the store this week.  Something comes over me when the seasons change.  Because I live in a city where the weather insists on staying virtually the same temperature all year round, and the palm trees know nothing of seasonal changes, I feel like I’m forced to express the change of season in very outward, often very expensive ways.  

When early October hits, and the hint of a cool night beckons me to turn my bedroom fan off, inevitably, the next day I’m out shopping for scarves, tights, knee high boots, and yes….. pumpkin.

We had a chilly night this past weekend (I’m talking low 60’s) which prompted me to take out my winter coat (yes I have one, and it’s fantastic).  This also prompted me to go on a pumpkin bender at the grocery store.  

I’m giving you the heads up.  It’s pumpkin time people.  Are you with me?

Consider this pumpkin recipe as your Fall lemon bar.  Think of this pumpkin recipe as reason not to have to roll out a pie crust.  Think of this pumpkin recipe when you want a nip from the Bourbon bottle while you’re baking.  Is that a crime?  I think not.

The Great Doughnut HuntOctober 14

There are endless things for a young, single girl to do in a big city like Los Angeles.  There’s shopping on Melrose.  There are afternoons at the beach in mid October.  There are concerts, countless happy hours to attend, and an array of ridiculously pretentious clubs to try to get into. 

Yea…. those are all things that most normal twenty something girls might find the time to do.  I’d like to consider myself a special breed.  When I had a free morning a few days back I decided to go doughnut hunting.  Yes, I made up a new sport.  It involved just a few things:  doughnut shops, milk or coffee, and an empty and willing stomach.  

Wanna play?  The beauty of this game is that you can do it in any city on any given morning.  

This year’s doughnut hunt was inspired by the crazyinsane (new word) doughnuts I made a few months back.  They were painfully good and inspired me to… well… bring doughnuts back into my life any way I could.  

I picked five Los Angeles doughnut eateries (I only made it to three before