Autumn's our favorite season for many reasons: perfect weather, football games, holidays, and—at the top of the list—an abundance of newly harvested apples. In many rural areas, orchard owners invite visitors to pick their own fruit; at city markets, local and "heirloom" apples such as Cortland, Gravenstein, and Baldwin join popular varieties like Delicious and Granny Smith.
We love biting into a fresh, crunchy apple as much as the next person, but the apple bounty is also an irresistible call to the stovetop and oven. Join us as we explore the many ways to enjoy apples, from breakfast to late-night snacks, from Halloween through New Year's Eve.
"The first cocktail I tried to create had avocado in it," says Kate Bolton, the mixologist and bar manager at San Francisco's Maven restaurant. "I blended it with cilantro, vodka, and some lime. It was pretty thick," she says with a smile, "but it tasted good!"
Summertime means more time outdoors and on the road. But that doesn't mean leaving your favorite homemade treats at home. As the weather warms up, we're ready to roll with no-fail recipes and tips for potlucks, picnics, car trips, and summer bake sales. For more advice about roadworthy cooking and baking, read our Baker's Profile of Mary Wilcox, "professional vagabond" extraordinaire!
For most people, a love of travel and a love of baking might be mutually exclusive. But not for Mary Wilcox. Since 2000, she and her husband, George, have been "professional vagabonds"—that's what it says on their business cards—who crisscross North America year-round in a 36-foot 1998 Alpine motor coach with nearly 155,000 miles on the odometer. The RV is spacious and comfortable, but that's not why Mary chose it. Her reason: "It has the best kitchen we have ever seen in a motor home."
Look what's just around the corner: Mother's Day, Father's Day, graduations, wedding showers, anniversaries. Nothing turns those occasions into celebrations like a beautifully decorated cake. And nothing says "extra special" like a cake you baked and decorated yourself. Too difficult for all but professionally trained bakers, you say? Not at all! Our cake-decorating consultants are here to show you how you can create gorgeously decorated cakes for any occasion with some simple equipment, ingredients, and techniques.
During a three-and-a-half-hour drive south of Kansas City to deliver a wedding cake last summer, master cake artist Rebecca Sutterby watched her car’s outside temperature gauge rise to 106 degrees. “I had the air conditioning turned on all the way and I was bundled up in three jackets,” she says. “I was so worried the cake was going to fall apart!” Luckily, only small repairs were required when she delivered the cake to its happy recipients.
Sugar is sweet—and that’s why we love it! But add heat to our favorite substance and it transforms from simply sweet to magically complex—an irresistible blend of tart, bitter, buttery, fruity, nutty, toasty, and aromatic that can be summed up in a single word: caramel.
A single word, yes—but it may refer to many different products, from pourable sauces to chewy candies to crisp toppings. What they all share is the sugar-plus-heat formula. And from there, things get interesting… and appetizing!
Mitchell Hughes’s path to a successful culinary career had an unconventional start and a romantic turning point. A native of San Francisco, he worked for 14 years as an immunology technician for a medical laboratory in Southern California—not the usual preparation for a creator of spectacular desserts. Then came a vacation in Paris with his partner, which opened Mitchell’s eyes to a different kind of science: the science of baking. When the vacation was over, he traded his lab coat for a baker’s smock and chef’s hat at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco.
