Our Fall Baking Challenge: What We’re Making (and Baking With)

Last year, I facetiously told my son he needed a new hobby.

He took me more seriously than I expected and declared that he wanted to learn to cook. He decided to spend the holiday season learning how different countries celebrate through food — then making some of their traditional feasts: a Hogwarts-style Sunday roast, an Italian Feast of the Seven Fishes, Norway’s Festival of Light.

We made some seriously delicious food — and I loved having a project that brought us into the kitchen every week. So this fall, we’re starting another one!

The Fall Baking Challenge

The premise is pretty simple: we’re going to bake our way through fall in search of the one treat we want to make every year.

We each threw out our favorite fall flavors and quintessential fall treats to put together the list of contenders: cinnamon and apples for me; chai and maple for my son; pumpkin pie and popcorn balls for Russell.

Here’s what we’re making:

Pumpkin Streusel Bread
Apple Galette with Caramel Sauce
Maple Pecan Scones
Chai Snickerdoodles
Halloween Popcorn Balls
Pumpkin Pie

By Thanksgiving, we’ll either have found a new family tradition or consumed an unreasonable amount of butter trying.

A Few Things That Make Baking Easier

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One thing I learned during last year’s cooking challenge: having the right equipment in the kitchen makes baking escapades a lot more manageable.

After years of baking, these are a handful of kitchen tools that make the process noticeably easier — whether they help things bake more evenly, make dough easier to handle or simply leave me with less of a mess to clean up afterward.

USA Pan bakeware: These bake incredibly evenly and have held up beautifully through a lot of use. Good pans are one of the places where I think upgrading actually makes a difference.
- Loaf Pans (Amazon)
- Sheet Pans (Amazon… also often have them at Costco)
My favorite measuring cups and spoons (Amazon): I love that this set includes less-common sizes like 3/4 cup. Even better, each cup has additional measurements marked inside. My 1-cup also marks 1/2, 2/3 and 3/4 cup, which means fewer dirty dishes.
Silpat baking mats (Williams-Sonoma): Game changing for delicate or sticky bakes. They give you a reliable nonstick surface without sprays or oils, and I use mine constantly. I’ve also bought the Amazon Basics mats, which work well too.
A large silicone pastry mat (Amazon): I roll dough directly on this instead of my countertop. It contains the floury mess, cleans up easily and has measurements printed on it so I can actually tell when I’ve rolled something to 12 inches instead of eyeballing it.
A bench scraper (Amazon): The best $8 you can spend to make working with dough easier. It’s particularly useful for cutting, lifting and handling dough — from the scones to the pie crust.
My KitchenAid (Amazon): Maybe not necessary, but if you bake regularly, it’s worth the investment. Mine has earned its counter space many times over. (See what other kitchen favorites live on my counters!)