the beginning of my favorite season with my favorite little man.

 Hey there autumn, you wasted no time in gracing us this year, with some early cool days, to enjoy warm beverages, flannel shirts and cozy slippers. This makes for one very happy girl. My favorite season is at hand!

 Liam is 14 months now and on the cusp of so many new adventures. He is almost walking, almost feeding himself with a spoon and almost saying or repeating new sounds and some words daily. It's a good season. Liam is growing, Snacky French is growing and I'm learning how to best manage time with Liam, Jason and my business. Some weeks are a crazy baking flurry, coordinating schedules, errands galore and some weeks I get to organize, pick pumpkins, knit and play at the park. Liam is reaping the benefits of my knitting. He got a new cowl! He even keeps it on. Major win. That's a bit of what's been going on around here, right now!

Fall Baked Treats

 Pumpkin Cupcake with Cinnamon Buttercream

 Caramel Apple Cupcake

Pumpkin Scone with Maple Glaze

Here's a little food photo shoot I did recently for some new fall items at Main St.Java. If your in the mood for something sweet to go with your pumpkin spice latte, then go get some! 

Happy Autumn!

xoxo Snacky French

Picking peaches in the orchard!

 I had a fun little date with these two, one morning last week! We went to a local orchard to pick peaches! Liam just thought they were balls and threw them to the ground every chance he got (which wasn't too many, I promise) We picked white and yellow peaches and as it was coming to the close of peach season, we had to search a little harder through the orchard, but it was worth it. We came out with baskets full of "gold" as far as I'm concerned. I love peaches, crave them all year when they aren't in season. So I'm really happy to be able to preserve them, so we can enjoy peaches  a little longer. I used this method to freeze them. I hope that it's successful!

Hummingbird Cupcakes

Cinnamon, Banana, Pineapple, Coconut, Pecans? 

I don't know whose idea this delicious combination of ingredients was, but it's definitely a winner. You can read more about it's origin here! Here's my version with coconut added and a cinnamon buttercream to compliment the cinnamon in this moist little fruity cupcake! They are at Main St. Java this week!

Utz logo cupcakes

 Last week I was asked by an advertising company to do some special cupcakes for their clients, which happened to be Utz! Very exciting, since it's a pretty local company and heck I eat their pretzels, so I was super excited about this project. I did their iconic Utz logo and Utz girl on top of the cupcakes,which were vanilla with raspberry filling and vanilla buttercream and chocolate with marshmallow cream filling and vanilla buttercream!

apples, bikes, pumpkins, parties:: from the archives 2008

( I was going through my archived blog posts recently, and found this gem! Apparently I have two fully written posts that were in my draft folder for um, 5 YEARS ago ?!?! So now that fall of 2013 is approaching I thought this would be fun to share. Here we were living in our old apartment,newly married. I'll share the other unpublished one some other time)

so we had a fall picnic, with some friends this weekend. perfect weather for such activities. jason and i made apple crisp and gingersnaps! it was my first time making apple crisp. my grandmother always use to make it in the fall for us. it came out quite well. i'm always happy when i bake, and they turn out like my childhood memories of the dish.


husband thought it would be fun to carve a pumpkin. apparently its a Muppet face.
we also got together a fall bike ride, for the " bicycling Lou's" we rode 45 miles round trip from oaks to the Philadelphia art museum. beautiful ride it was. we underestimated our time a bit, and arrived back home in the dark. quite an adventuresome weekend
Jason and i have been enjoying the fall season with some pumpkins from a local farm stand

Raspberry Torte

Chocolate cake with raspberry filling and ganache frosting, for your eyes to feast on this lovely Thursday afternoon!

Late summer glory

 This boy is a warm weather lover! We are trying to savor all that comes with summer while it's still here. Currently that includes romping around in a diaper, homemade popsicles for teething boys and eating corn and peaches in abundance. Only Liam doesn't like corn off the cob.. Hmm, well maybe that will change before next year.  Oh and he loves his new kitchen "tools", in fact, he lined them up perfectly in the doorway today. I joked he was practicing being a "line cook". Oh that boy and his curious and carefree ways. I love it so!

Lace Bridal Shower Cake

Here's a cake I did over the weekend. I piped on ivory buttercream over white buttercream to get a vintage, lace feel for the cake. I love all things old, so this cake was something I really got into. My Grandmother's doilies, the bride's wedding dress and bridesmaid's dresses were the inspiration for the design!

CSA's + Salsa Verde

This year we decided to be a part of a local CSA. We are fortunate enough for that to mean about 2 miles away from where we live! So every other Friday I go to the farm to pick up our produce and usually pick something out in the fields like strawberries, tomatoes, herbs  and most recently tomatillos! We are big fans of salsa verde in this house, so I was pretty excited about the possibility of making it ourselves. As it turns out, it's actually a lot easier than regular salsa. You husk the tomatillos, quarter them and throw them in a pot of water, along with a few other ingredients. They simmer away for 40 minutes and then you just pulse it in the food processor. I used this receipe and loved it!