Kanelbullens Dag, North American style

This past weekend we had a sudden transition into what passes for fall out here--a breeze picked up, temperatures went down, the air was positively crisp. No leaves changing color, but I'll take what I can get. In short, the weather was perfect for a little fall baking:



This here is the beginning of a seriously delicious batch of cinnamon rolls. Not just any cinnamon rolls though. Pumpkin cinnamon rolls. With cranberries and walnuts. Sounds delicious, no? They look delicious also:

And they are even MORE delicious if you take it a step further and top them off with a maple glaze:

Yum. Recipe, you ask? Well....I don't exactly have one yet. I used this recipe on the King Arthur Flour blog as a loose inspiration, but I made some definite changes. Mainly, I turned the recipe vegan, but I also played around with the spices and the dry:wet ingredients ratio. My one complaint about cinnamon rolls (in general) is that they can be VERY dry, which I do not care for at all. So I had to do some tweaking to make sure these rolls came out moist. I did make some notes on my modifications, but I'm going to need to make these at least once more before I've got things down and have a real recipe to share. Which means that this fall, I'm going to be having a lot more breakfasts like this:

Can't complain.

Millions of peaches...

Okay, maybe not quite millions, but today's dish+recipe packs a serious peach punch. Peaches were a mere 50 cents a pound at the grocery store this week, a bargain even here in the land of abundant affordable produce. This pricing scheme has two key implications. First, I have been eating a half dozen peaches or so every day. Second, it's time to make a peach pie:


I like to keep my peach pie fairly simple, with minimal additions. I did make the crust for this one from scratch, but I hear it's possible to get perfectly acceptable (and even vegan) puff pastry in the freezer case of your grocery store these days. Personally, I am determined to eventually make a good vegan rough puff (this one was merely okay, so I'm not posting the recipe) so I am resisting the siren call of Pillsbury for now.

Once you have figured out the pastry end of things to your satisfaction, it's time to make the filling. One thing I personally hate about fruit pies is that you sometimes wind up with a huge gap inside the pie between crust and filling. This gap is due to the pastry baking enough for its shape to set before the fruit has really started to cook down and shrink in volume. The solution to this problem is to pre-cook the fruit for 15-20 minutes on the stovetop.

For a super peachy filling, you will need:

~4lbs ripe peaches, washed, pitted, and sliced (NOTE: Try to get peaches that are not underripe, as they aren't as sweet).
juice of 1 lime
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. cornstarch or arrowroot powder

1. In a large saucepan, mix together peaches and lime juice and let sit for a few minutes.

2. Add nutmeg, cinnamon, and cornstarch to peaches and stir together until well mixed

3. Place saucepan on stove over medium heat. Cover saucepan and cook peaches for 15-20 minutes, stirring every few minutes. If the peach juice begins to boil, reduce heat. Eventually your peaches should look something like these guys:


4. Turn heat off on stove and add the sugar to peach mixture. Roll out the bottom half of your pie crust and place in pie dish. Spoon the peach filling into crust. Roll out top crust and place over top of filling. If you have leftover pastry dough, use some to decorate your pie. I usually go with four leaves (as pictured above), but there's no reason why you couldn't do something different.

5. Place pie in a 450F oven and bake for 30-40 minutes, until pie is nicely browned.

6. Slice and serve: