Cooking Show: Fall Baking! Cranberry Cream Cheese Muffins, Apple Bread with Caramel Icing

We recently filmed an episode of the cooking show with a "Fall Baking" theme.

I knew that I wanted to share my apple bread recipe.  As I was picking out apples in the supermarket, a fellow shopper started asking me if I was going to use the apples for the cooking show.  I told her yes, I am going to make apple bread and she said something like, "why don't you make something like caramel apples, something for people like me who don't cook?"

I kept a straight face and said, GREAT IDEA, while inside my head I was thinking hmmmm...if only she knew what a hassle it can be to make caramel apples.  The last time I made caramel apples was the last time (about twenty years ago) because it was such a messy ordeal.

My friends, Kerry and Kelly, joined me in my kitchen and we made Apple Bread with Caramel Icing, Cranberry Cream Cheese muffins and the aforementioned Caramel Apples.

Apple Bread with Caramel Icing

Just look at this bread!  Chunks of apples in the bread, completed with a perfect caramel icing on top.

Cranberry Cream Cheese Muffins

Made with fresh cranberries, these muffins are so good. The cream cheese adds a nice texture; dense, but not too heavy.

And here are our caramel apples.  Aren't they just, uh, beautiful?

They tasted absolutely fine.  We melted our caramel, melted our chocolate, dipped in caramel, drizzled with chocolate, sprinkled with an assortment of toppings and then sliced the apples into wedges because it is the least-messy way to indulge.

Kelly and Kerry had never made caramel apples before and the mood while we filmed sort of went from enthusiastic to OMG, WHY are we doing this?

The reason why we were doing this was because someone in the supermarket had suggested to me that caramel apples would be a good recipe for people who don't like to cook.  I took that suggestion and ran with it, if only to prove that sometimes cooking is easier than not cooking.

Kelly and Kerry both agreed that both the apple bread and the cranberry muffins were much easier to make than the caramel apples!

My final thoughts are 1. that an array of fun toppings and an assortment of tantalizingly decorated apples may make for a beautiful picture on Pinterest, but the reality of preparing those apples is an effort in futility, and 2. if you are craving a caramel apple, save yourself the frustration of making it
and simply buy one that's already made!

If you still feel that you may want to give it a try for yourself, click here for the printable recipe--a recipe that I reluctantly wrote and still did my best to dissuade whomever reads it from ever attempting to make these little fruits of frustration.

Even though we didn't prepare this recipe on-camera, if you watched the show you may have noticed that Kelly, Kerry and I were sipping on pumpkin martinis!  Click here to be taken to my blogpost where you can find the recipe.

Cooking Show: Recipes to warm up the chill of Autumn! Apple Cobbler, Chicken Curry

Just like THAT (snap!), it seems like the daily temperature plunged from 90 to 70.  This timing was perfect for our recent cooking show, where we prepared recipes to keep you warm and comfort you as the temperatures dip! 

My friend, Gayle, joined me and we prepared a couple of Thai curry dishes as well as an apple cobbler.

Apple Cobbler

Now that apple-picking season is here, it may be time for you to add another apple recipe into your rotation!  This apple cobbler is so much quicker to prepare than a pie!  Just pour the batter over your sliced apples and bake.

 Thai Chicken Curry

I shared this recipe with Gayle several months ago.  Here's the text she sent me after she prepared it:

omg. insanely delicious?  what's it called again? where did u get this?  i'm def adding this one to the book. 

We decided it would be fun to make this recipe on the cooking show, and we've been trying to coordinate our schedules since June!  I'm glad we are finally able to share this with you!

Thai Chicken Noodle Soup

There's lots of soup on the menu in my house when the cooler weather arrives.  

Gayle and I decided to stick with the Thai theme and came up with this soup.  It is killer.   Every year during the fall/winter seasons, there is one soup that I become obsessed with and I probably make it every week.  Considering that I've already made three batches of this soup in the past month, I'm going to declare that this recipe is going to be my go-to for the winter!