While I love spring and summer and all the delicious produce that comes with it, I will be honest and say that my favorite time to bake is most definitely in the fall. Autumn spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and ginger are some of my favorites to use in baking, and they always go well with autumn produce, like apples, endless squash, pumpkin, and pears. While I love summer fruit desserts, summer is not my favorite time to have my oven on, which would make my house even hotter than it already is. Having the oven on for baking in autumn and winter make the house smell and feel more cozy, plus they also help to heat up the place when the temperature drops. For me, from a cooking perspective, I ring in the fall by baking something with apple or pumpkin in it. Last weekend, I made a light pumpkin cake to bring over for Kaia’s play date. This week, since my friend is visiting from out of town, I decided to use it as an excuse to bake another autumn treat that has been on my list, which was Scientifically Sweet’s latest cinnamon apple fritter cake.

A few years ago, I made apple cider donuts from scratch at home in the fall. While they were absolutely delicious and fun to make, it was time consuming since they were yeast donuts. Plus, they took an ungodly amount of coconut oil to shallow fry, which was both messy and expensive since coconut oil is not cheap. I’ve previously made a German style apple cake a couple autumns, which I enjoyed; Chris had even said it was likely the best dessert I’d ever made at that point in time. This autumn, I wanted something that was more of a mashup, and so this apple fritter cake was the perfect marriage of these desires. Scientifically Sweet describes it as tasting like “a cinnamon apple donut without all the oiliness from deep frying.” Granted, I think the best donuts do not feel oily, nor do they taste heavy at all; in fact, the very, very best donuts are so deceptively light that they feel like you can eat half a dozen of them and not even realize you ate that many. But regardless, this description sounded perfect to me.

I also just purchased a new bag of all-purpose flour so that I can start baking some breads. Chris requested breads that he could enjoy with jam, so I’m likely going to make no-knead brioche soon. And then I also want to make some yeast-based rolls, so I also have sweet potato yeast rolls on my list to make. Baking yeast bread in summer never seems fun, but baking it in the fall and winter seem like the perfect indoor activity. Who knows – maybe Kaia will want to get involved, too. Or… maybe she’ll just eat it all.