Welcome Fall!

I've been at Biaggi's for close to two months now and think I'm doing all right. They've cross-trained me on sauces already in addition to being their evening pantry cook. I hope to learn all of the stations before too long, even if it's just well enough to pitch in during a rush. I'm making friends among the cooks and servers (tolerating the rest) and Davenport is starting to feel like home.

About three weeks ago I got a new cookbook especially written for small-scale cakes, which I've had a lot of fun using lately. It was perfect to get so soon after moving because somehow in the moving process nearly all of my cake pans had gone missing, and all I had was my 8" square pan which I hardly ever used. The day it arrived was my mom's birthday so I got to initiate it by making her birthday cake from one of the recipes. It's been a real treat to have because living alone I don't have a lot of help killing off cakes and I like to bake a lot this time of year (I just don't like being up to my elbows in increasingly stale leftover cake!) I hadn't done much cake baking from scratch, so this has really gotten me going on it. I've even made my own icing!

Today I adapted a recipe for genoise to incorporate pumpkin to celebrate the first day of fall. I substituted the pumpkin for the butter in the recipe. I just unmolded it, so once I have it iced and ready to serve we'll see how that turned out! I plan to fill it with apricot jam and cut it into petit fours. I'm a sucker for those, they're so cute! My new book even has a recipe for poured fondant icing, so I'm up to giving it a try.

I used the rest of the pumpkin to make a few loaves of pumpkin bread, I love pumpkin bread, for me it marks the beginning of the season. It fills the apartment with such wonderful smells and it's put me in such a good mood today. I'm seeing Ethan and his family today so I'll bring at least one of the loaves down with me. A good time should be had by all.