Fall is finally here which means I can start my seasonal baking! It's been here for a couple of weeks, but I sure couldn't tell it by the summer temperatures we've been experiencing. I can never get in the mood when the average temperature is in the 100s. (Take note Mother Nature. We do not need any more days so hot I could do my upcoming holiday baking outside on the driveway. Okay? Okay.) I have always followed the meteorological dates for the seasons so for me fall started over a month ago, but I don't care. Come the first day of September, out comes all my fall décor. I have my dining room table covered with a seasonal tablecloth, candles, flowers, and a runner. In the living room, I have seasonal flowers, and fake pumpkins that can double for fall and Halloween decorations.
Today is October 4 and I'm already nag...I mean, encouraging David to get the Halloween decorations down from the attic. I start each holiday on the first day of the month so I can get the most mileage out of my efforts. I know David (and his back) is thankful that my other seasonal decorations are meager compared to Christmas. Those decorations can take days and days to put up and take down. The older I get, the longer it seems to take which is why my experiment last year of leaving them up until Candlemas was such a rousing success failure. I'm not planning on repeating my experiment this year unless I get too lazy to get them put away before the grass turns green again, but I make no promises.
Anyway, today is also when I start thinking about ways I can make our daughter's birthday a little bit more special. I feel kind of bad that her birthday is so far from most of the rest of the family's; my platinum jubilee this year notwithstanding. In years past, August through November were our busy months, but as older members passed away and younger ones came along, as is nature's way, our busy season transitioned to December through July with a bottleneck around June. Let's face it, we don't have a single month without at least one birthday to celebrate, if we're lucky. It's usually a minimum of two or more. My Amazon delivery driver and I are on a first-name basis these days.
Our son, son-in-law, and daughter-in-law's June birthdays are within a week of each other, along with half a dozen grandkids' so it gets quite fatting, I mean fun, with the constant celebrating. We often celebrate the adults' June birthdays together so here's our poor daughter all alone in the Fall except for our youngest granddaughter who is also left out of the parade of birthdays.
I've been out of practice for a while now when it comes to making fancy cakes and cupcakes for the kiddos with my hands cramping like they do when I attempt any decorating, but I decided that this year I'm going to make some special cupcakes for our daughter no matter what. I may have to stop frequently for my hands to unclasp but I will push on. Instead of the usual chocolate or vanilla ones I usually make for her office, I'm going to attempt a recipe I found online. Why I don't use one of the dozens of cookbooks dedicated to such things, I don't know but that's the way I am.
I decided on a pecan pie cupcake recipe since we're all very fond of the pecan pie I make for the holidays. For this recipe, I'm going to use real pecans which shows how dedicated I am to making her birthday special. Why's that, you ask? Well, I'll tell ya. For nearly 50 years, whenever I've made pecan pies for the holidays, I've substituted walnuts because they are way less expensive and not a single person ever knew until a couple of years ago when a few of the granddaughters caught me red-handed with the empty walnut bag. Curses, I was caught. I swore them to secrecy although I don't know why. I've never really tried to hide the fact that I used walnuts instead of pecans, but I didn't broadcast it either. Some of Nana's secrets need to remain that way so the grandkids will always think I'm magical.
Anyway, I made the cupcakes and all I can say is 'They're okay,' but I don't think I'll call them pecan cupcakes. I was a little disappointed in the toasted pecans. If I do this again, I'll buy pre-made sweetened pecans.
P.S. David has hauled down my Halloween decorations so now I'm on the hook to put them out. Drats.