Baking With Spirit: The Autumnal Round Up

Autumn is now in full swing: there are few green leaves left on the deciduous trees, the clocks have gone back (here in the UK) and the night skies will shortly be filled with fireworks for bonfire night.

To celebrate this, I set this month's Baking With Spirit as autumnal. There were some great entries this month, so let's jump into the round up:

Laura is miles ahead of my thought process and has already made suet free Whisky Christmas Mincemeat at I'd Much Rather Bake Than.... I'd happily eat a mince pie made with this, and I bet the whisky imparts great flavour. Laura reasons that this is autumnal because it's what she makes in the autumn, and that logic works for me!

If you were hoping for something a little more Halloween-centric, fear not: Choclette has just the thing. She has long avoided this type of thing because it's an Americanised version of All Hallow's Eve, but this year she's embracing tradition with this Chocolate Pecan Pumpkin Cake at Chocolate Log Blog. Whatever the theme, that flavour combination sounds A-Ok to me, especially since it's combined with a rum icing.

I made this Rioja Chocolate Cake because I thought wine and chocolate would make a good flavour combination. I was right! I reasoned that this was autumnal because it epitomises the darkness of this time of year (hey, I said I was flexible on logic here) with its moist and dark crumb.

Finally, I'd like to welcome Bake It With Booze back to the challenge after some time away. Ellen made this Caramel Pumpkin Bourbon Cake for cold days such as those in autumn. The cake sounds incredibly moist, and I love the look of the pecans in the top of the cake. I also love the whisky label in one of the pictures on the post - almost (but not quite) as exciting as the cake.

Special mention goes to Craig at The Usual Saucepans for his valiant effort to enter the challenge. His peanut butter fudge sounds like it was worth the pain of the failed half of his batch, however.

If you're interested in hosting the challenge some time, get in touch and we'll sort something out! I'll post the next instalment of the Baking With Spirit challenge on Saturday.