Autumn is a very special time of the year for. When all the world feels new life in spring, I feel like born again in autumn. I love breathing the crystal clear air with notes of dry leaves and smoke – even in the centre of the city, not only in parks. The colours are absolutely stunning, the weather is mild – not too cold and not too hot. Bright days are made for chilling in park and dull days are for being alone with your own thoughts… So that everything feels right in autumn, everything is in harmony.

I love going out for a picnic in autumn, and in grey rainy days before that I try myself with new recipes I’d like to bring with me on a picnic. And I’d say that most of those recipes are using apples. ‘Cause autumn is an apple time.

So, today I’m going to share some of these goodies with you. Hope they will help your autumn be more comfortable, warm and tasty.

These are apple chips. You can easily make them by slicing some apples thinly and drying them in oven for couple of hours at 100 degrees C. Better to turn them once in an hour to dry evenly.

That is an ideal autumn snack for kids. My don’t stop until they eat all of them. I add a bit of sugar and cinnamon before putting into oven – that makes chips crispier and sweeter.

And yeah – the brown thing under the grater is not soap, no. It is organic panela, which is dried unrefined cane syrup. So it is sugar, but much more flavoury  and the seller says it has some of vitamins and proteins that are lost in refined sugar.

The next one is one of my favourite apple pies. Actually no matter what you put inside – it will impress your eaters just because it is beautiful. This one is made on a pecan nut crust with maple custard filling and apple roses all over.

It is beautiful isn’t it? I was looking at it’s image on Pinterest for ages before I decided to cook it. And it is really easy! You can find the recipe and instructions here. The only thing I did differently is that I baked it after decorating with apples. For about 30 min at 180 degrees C. It is definitely better when cooled completely as the filling sets up and you can easily cut it without spoiling the beauty.

And one more thing to show is apple and cinnamon marshmallow. It is a Russian confectionery fabric recipe, so it is kind of my childhood treat. And I aware you it is very much different from what you call marshmallow here in UK and Europe. The main difference is in using agar-agar (agar seaweed) instead of gelatin. It makes it vegan friendly and gives marshmallow a very tender but dense structure.

I’ll post some pics here, but the recipe will follow in the next post.

Very nice off-white colour. Actually I made these for a Saturday Market. So I still have them standing in the dinning room and the temptation to have one or two with tea – is unbearable. And we know, the only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it (Oscar Wilde).