Crunchy Candied Pumpkin and Spiced Pumpkin Coffee Ice Cream

I see pumpkins, pumpkins everywhere, and most of the food blogs I visit are still gaga over the Starbucks™ Pumpkin Spice Latte. I haven't tried their seasonal drink [I've never set foot in a Starbucks™ in over 20 years.] but I have made the yummy treat a few times before. The recipe is here.

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Pastillas De Leche

Pastillas de leche literally means milk bars, pills, or tablets. I'd go with the bars, as in chocolate bars They are teeny tiny, usually less than 1 inch long and ½ inch thick, made with fresh milk, sugar, a little butter, and powdered milk, and optional natural fruit flavoring such as purple yam (ube) and jackfruit. The original candies were made with carabao's (water buffalo) milk which has a higher fat content than cow's milk. I made it a few times before. This time I ended up making 3 batches because the first was a complete fail although I rescued it and made it into milk caramel spread. The second one is plain milk and I added Milo malt drink powder into the third batch.

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Kouign Amann

I was binge-watching The Great British Baking Show on Netflix. I love the show (except for the finale). The hosts are funny and entertaining and the baketestants sometimes are too.

One of the "technical" bakes was Kouign amann. None of the bakers knew or even heard of the Breton bread, much less how to pronounce it. I was surprised because I baked this delicious crunchy with caramelized sugar bread almost 8 years ago when I read about it on David Lebovitz's blog. I've never baked it into small muffin size though and don't remember it being flaky or with visible layers like croissants.

The recipe is Paul Hollywood's, one of the two judges on the show. BTW, most of the recipes are posted on PBS website. I like these too but I remember the Kouign amann made with David's recipe tasted better probably because it has more sugar than Paul's.

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Caramel Apple Butter And Apple Mint Jelly

Autumn is almost here, I can already smell it. It's time to make apple butter, jam, and jelly when a wide variety of apples are available in farmer's markets (or grocery stores that sell local produce). Caramel apple butter sounds really good when I heard about it. It really is and with a little sea salt it tastes fantastic. I added a few sprigs of fresh spearmint from my garden while cooking the jelly. I love its subtle flavor. So good.

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