If you recall, I spent last fall on the hunt for an apple cake recipe to call my own. I tried a French apple cake and served it with caramel sauce; I made another that was packed with apples and loaded with an obscene amount of crumb topping. And this September, as soon as the stone fruits and berries gave way to apples at the grocery store, I picked up right where I left off in my quest for apple cake perfection. This year I was thinking walnuts and cinnamon, butter and maple.
My persistence is paying off–this cake’s a keeper. It’s a lightly spiced tube cake, with a moist, tender crumb. You hit an apple chunk in most bites, a walnut in every other. All of that goodness is sealed in with a maple and brown butter glaze that is the literal and figurative icing on the cake. It’s decadent but homey, easy yet impressive, and definitely a cake I’ll make over and over.
I thought I was done blogging. I thought I’d finally had enough of the self-imposed stress and enough standing on chairs, photographing my dinner. I’d thought I was ready put the project on the shelf for good.
There’s been an awful lot of soup in my life for the past few weeks. Every time I put another pot on the stove, the little voice in my head replays a line from the movie “Juno”. 
Real-deal homemade lasagna is a wonderful thing. Imagine thin sheets of homemade pasta, layered with silky béchamel and rich meaty Bolognese sauce, stuck together with melted cheese…what could be better?