Brown Butter Pumpkin Rum Cake
This post is a present for you: a piece of one of the best cakes I’ve ever made (have you noticed I’m remaking it in 800 variations? That’s always a sign it’s good) and a reminder of things our kindergarten teachers tried their best to teach us. Bless their hearts, they didn’t know how we would be tested. Some of us have failed. But we can always get back on track.
Here are 6 reminders of things we learned in kindergarten:
Brown Butter Pumpkin Snack Cake with Crackle Icing
BROWN BUTTERRRR is good enough, y’all. Good enough to make this Brown Butter Pumpkin Snack Cake with Crackle Icing INCREDIBLE. But there’s this other amazing trick I learned that makes this cake one of the best I’ve EVER eaten . . .
Pumpkin Bread Stuffed with Chai Cheesecake
It always feels like when I have the most stories to tell, I find myself silent under their weight. When Mike and I broke up years ago, I just lost all my words for awhile. My thoughts were traveling a million miles a minute, making all the connections, tying the hum of a rusty refrigerator in Missouri to a gauze of silence in Denver. I have those threads sewn up in my heart but the stories take too much work to form. Not too much, but more than I’m ready for each week.
Moving to California has been the same way.
Cheerwine Hand Pies
Nothing says “North Carolina” quite like a glass of Cheerwine. Mentioning it to anyone beyond our state borders produces a quizzical look and the inevitable question: “Is it alcoholic?” It’s not, of course; it’s not wine at all, though it certainly is cheery!
Produced in Salisbury since 1917, the fizzy drink is named for its red wine-like appearance. There’s no better way to celebrate North Carolina than with a fair-worthy treat whipped up using one of our favorite classic sodas.
Apple Dump Cake
Where are my “I-didn’t-know-I-had-ADHD-until-I-was-an-adult” people at? This is a trip, right?! I was diagnosed at age 31. I always did well at school and work, so I never realized anything could be wrong. I had to stay up until 3 AM every night, but that’s what everyone does if they want to be successful, right? My image of a person with ADHD was a hyperactive elementary-aged boy, so no wonder I missed the cause of my struggles for so long.
I never stopped to question why I couldn’t find an effective planner, struggled to remember assignments, struggled to decide what to work on when, struggled to focus into reading like I had as a child, struggled to meet deadlines. I never asked myself why I needed to take furious notes on lectures just to stay attentive. I never asked myself why I could drink caffeine all day long and never feel wired — only more effective. I never put it together why managing daily household chores and obligations felt so monumental to me. I never questioned why, though lots of my friends felt the weight of their workload, I was the only one who felt quite so scrambled. I never wondered why I forgot things constantly, misplaced things constantly, and had to develop strict systems to avoid locking my keys in my car (remember this little incident?). I’ve lived decades of my life in a “constant state of overwhelm.” Sound familiar to anyone out there?
