Dear Bakers and Friends,

Welcome to the October 2025 issue of Betterbaking.com!

Thanks to all of you who signed up with the annual BB two-for-one subscription special.
It ended on September 30^th 2025 – you’re all set for two full years of all-access baking!

As the Jewish New Year celebrations start to gently fade away (and Sukkot isn’t yet here; ditto for Canadian Thanksgiving and Halloween) I can turn my attention to the baking delights of October which are almost too myriad to capture. It’s like trying to gather up the prettiest falling leaves and dropping orchard apples in one embrace. A noble task but it can’t be done. I browse my cookbooks, my Word recipe files and this very website and I’m gobsmacked by the offerings for this time of year. It is a baker’s romance affair and I’m all in. I visit famed Atwater and Jean Talon markets and load up on eggplants for Eggplant Parmesan, cauliflower for my August Moon Cauliflower Soup, red peppers to roast and tomatoes to make into sauce and guess what? All that stuff sits (the eggplant often rots before I can get to it) and I put all my energies into baking instead! I’m terrible about planning btw. At least once every four months, I defrost and refreeze the same one-pound of hamburger meat (intended for: meatball, sauce, lasagna, hamburgers) and it eventually has to be tossed. I must do better. I hate wasting food but clearly I’m kidding myself about following through when it comes to minced meat.

I love this early part of fall because you get those mellow days where you awaken to not-so-nippy temperatures and realize it’s warm enough to go without a sweater! A bumper crop of sun! Not only that, it lasts all day despite the earlier sunset. Fall is a sweetheart – a kind and consistent girl. By contrast, in spring, you have these days that start out chilly, segue to summer heat and then there’s a rain shower at 4 pm and immediately afterwards it’s cold. You curse yourself for being fooled by the morning warmth and leaving that sweater at home. Spring is a fickle lass. But October gifts these unexpected and welcome days. The sun streaks in like spilled melted butter, converging with the blushing leaves and scent of apples and the air is as cider-sweet as good memories. I call these ‘caramel’ or butterscotch days. Coincidentally those flavors are my own favorites (strawberry mango and passion fruit would take the honors in summer). I like chocolate very much but I’m a fool for anything caramel, butterscotch, penuche, dulce de leche, brown sugar or toffee. So this issue is dedicated to those flavor themes. There’s certainly, should you prefer, a plethora of pumpkin and apple recipes in the Recipe Archives, along with cinnamon and spice so just go browsing or ask me for a suggestion.

Aside from my usual non-routine which is founded on chronic overwhelm (despite meditation, yoga and spiritual audio books for my walks), I’ve been celebrating Rosh Hashanah, (aka discussing on FB forums whether first cut or second cut brisket is better), enjoying the beginning of the baseball playoff season (Go Blue Jays! Come back Expos!), soup-making, dancing, swimming but mostly: writing. The cookbook is almost done but I’m also putting the finishing touches on a second volume of poetry and a quick-and-easy Montreal Cookbook. For those who remember Tomasso Piazza Restaurant and the famous meat spaghetti sauce, you will be thrilled with this book.  Speaking of books, I look forward with my book club members the week ahead when I’ll be leading a discussion on Shark Heart, an intriguing novel by Emily Habeck.

Scent of a Baker

As I always do, I gathered some new perfumes for the season (Allure by Chanel, Opium Red Ove by Dior, Angham by Lattafa, Royal Blend by Paris Corner, Hanae by Hanae Mori, Bois de Vanille by Serge Lutens and Viral Vanilla by Oakcha). Some perfumes I buy at discounters and some are just decants but they are each and all a pleasure. I keep a core rotation of favorite perfumes but a periphery of new ones for the season scents. Fall fragrances are warm, cosy and boozy.  Somehow this fall has nudged my writer’s soul and all I do is write – at my desk, in a notepad in the car, dictating into my iPhone on a walk. Here’s a recent new poem of mined called The Welcome Mat for those of you who enjoy such things.

Warm wishes from my caramel-scented kitchen to yours. I salute you in sweetness in whatever form it comes in.

Marcy Goldman
Master Baker, Author, Publisher
www.Betterbaking.com
Est. 1997

Free Recipe of the Month!
Caramel Pudding Oatmeal Cookies
https://betterbaking.com/free-recipe-2025-pumpkin-pie-tollhouse-cookies-from-betterbaking-com/

Caramel Popcorn Cupcakes
Great for a Halloween party but simply a mouthwatering, whimsical cupcake.
https://betterbaking.com/recipe-items/caramel-popcorn-cupcakes/

Apple Cider Sugared Donut Cake
https://betterbaking.com/recipe-items/apple-cider-sugared-donut-cake/
Brown sugar makes this caramel-toned and it is simply a sumptuous, buttery slicing cake for fall.

Caramel Nutella Biscotti
https://betterbaking.com/recipe-items/rolled-nutella-biscotti/
This is beautiful, ingenious and easy and is rife with a caramel toned batter that hides a river of Nutella.