Dark Chocolate & Walnut Caramel Tartlets

Happy Monday! And to my East coast friends who are about to ride out the Frankenstorm, please be careful. (And remember to stock up on the essentials...batteries, blankets, pet supplies, cookies, brownies, and rum!)

Can you believe that Halloween is this Wednesday already?! I love Halloween. I just wish that we could relish the autumn season a little bit longer instead of having to run face-first into a barrage of holiday paraphernalia. As soon as Halloween is over it's a crazy-mad race until the end of December.

I still want to be enveloped by shades of orange, and russet, and earthy browns. And I want to inhale the smoky scent of burning leaves, spiced apple cider, and warm cinnamon-sugar doughnuts. My finger-less Oliver Twist gloves are not ready for retirement. Nor is my desire to bake with pumpkin, and butterscotch, and caramel.

Yes, caramel is an ingredient for all seasons. But its sultry-burnt flavour will always procure swirling images of falling leaves and cadet blue skies tinged with a smoldering, hazy sun.

peanut butter and jalapeño cherry jam bars

A few weeks or months ago (time feels so surreal this year) Kristy, of The Wicked Noodle, introduced  me to Shop Sweet Lulu. With eyes as wide as saucers and with legs curled up on the chair (my "nesting" pose), I made my way through every square inch and pixel of Lulu's sweet shop.

Straws, cupcake wrappers, cupcake toppers, milk bottles, tableware...they have everything a baker-blogger could ask for, including twine!

I'm not sure what it is about twine, but I love tying it around Everything lately. I didn't realize the intensity of that love until I edited the photos for these PB & J bars, and last Saturday's cookies; somehow twine made its way into almost every picture.

I tied a long piece of twine around the tail of a toy mouse and pulled it from room to room. Of course my cats remained blasé during my run around the house, which only made me start giggling, which, in turn, led to deadpan stares from the cats; this eventually brought me to a state of rolling around on my back in a fit of laughter.

Twine. Who knew it could be so amusing?

Lemon & Thyme, Olive Oil Cookies

Last summer's sultry, tropical heat unearthed a lost respect for the lazy ease of flip-flops, as well as a Pandora's box of otherworldly insects.  I think it was either July or early August that I had an uninvited, eight-legged visitor in my late night shower. Even though I have an intense fear of them, I try to respect spiders. But the creature clinging to my shower curtain (the very curtain I'd just drawn back with my hand!), was no ordinary spider. It was the colour of creamy coffee and instead of having nice, evenly-spaced legs, the four front legs were spread above it's head, whilst the back legs stretched out below it's torso, leaving a creepy space in the center. Plus it was the size of a small gerbil (maybe). In a moment of sheer panic, I washed it down the thankfully-wide drain and proceeded to take the fastest shower in the history of showers (because I think we've all seen Arachnophobia!).

Apparently the incident left a mental scar because I recently had a nightmare about a pulsating nest growing in the cellar. And just like real life, Niles, my 20lb cat, was completely useless when it came to catching anything. After one of the dream spiders ran across his tail, all he did was clean one of his front paws, yawn, stretch, and then go back to sleep.

After the leggy nightmare, I needed something to calm down. And nothing calms me down quite like baking and cookie eating. Especially when my beloved lemons are involved.

Caramel-Chocolate Apple Tart

Smitten taste buds are intoxicating.

I can't dig deep enough into my eclectic bag of vocabulary to find the words that will properly convey the jaw-dropping elation that your taste buds will encounter upon biting into this tart.

If you're familiar with the delirious, beautiful anxiety that's felt just before seeing someone you're madly in love with, it's kind of like that...only the epic story is unfolding inside your mouth.

And before you know it, the excitement, that giddy feeling of walking on clouds, has spread to your stomach and your hands and finally your toes. Chairs are no longer chairs, but dance partners. Dance partners who won't mind that you're waltzing around with a forkfull of sticky caramel tart. And you won't mind the sticky caramel that's falling on the newly-washed floor, because you'll be too busy listening to your humming taste buds.

You might even be convinced that it's May, and that the sunshine outside is hazy, not icy. And that the coloured leaves are just tree confetti, because the trees are so that You're happy.

Isn't being in love wonderful? Even if it's brief, and especially if it's a caramel-chocolate apple tart.