5 Cozy Fall Recipes to Make This October -

October has officially arrived, my friends, and I am ready.

Not organized, mind you. Let’s not get carried away.

But emotionally? I am fully prepared for the leaves to turn gold, the mornings to get chilly, and my kitchen to smell like cinnamon for approximately the next eight weeks.

October is kind of the sweet spot of fall cooking, isn’t it? We’re past those weird September days when you’re wearing a sweater at breakfast and regretting it by lunchtime, but we haven’t reached the full holiday cooking marathon yet. There’s still time to bake something just because it sounds good. To put a pot of soup on the stove. To make pizza on a Friday night and pile it with an absolutely unreasonable assortment of fall ingredients.

And yes, to put plastic spiders on brownies.

Obviously.

So I went digging through The Mommy & the Ivy recipe box and pulled out five of my favorite recipes for October. We’ve got sweet. We’ve got savory. We’ve got pumpkin and apples and butternut squash. We’ve even got Halloween covered.

Consider this your October cooking list.

Coffee ready? Let’s go.

1. Apple Loaf Cake with Cinnamon Glaze

If October had a house perfume, I’m pretty sure it would be apples and cinnamon.

This Apple Loaf Cake with Cinnamon Glaze is one of those wonderful little cakes that doesn’t require an occasion. It’s perfectly happy sitting on the kitchen counter waiting for you to wander past with a cup of coffee and decide that yes, actually, cake is an appropriate midmorning snack.

The cake is soft and buttery with chopped apples tucked throughout, and then the whole thing gets a sweet cinnamon glaze drizzled over the top.

It’s not fancy. It’s not trying to win a baking competition.

It’s just really, really cozy.

And sometimes that’s exactly what we need.

Make this one when: you’ve gone apple picking, bought the Costco-sized bag of apples with entirely too much confidence, or just want your kitchen to smell spectacular.

Get the Apple Loaf Cake with Cinnamon Glaze recipe →

2. Copycat Panera Autumn Squash Soup

There comes a day every October when I walk outside in the morning and Colorado has apparently decided we’re done with fall.

Yesterday? Seventy degrees.

Today? Where are my gloves?

That’s soup day.

My Copycat Panera Autumn Squash Soup is basically a fuzzy blanket you can eat. Roasted butternut squash gets blended with pumpkin, apple cider, cream, and all those warm fall spices until everything becomes silky, slightly sweet, and ridiculously cozy.

Add a big hunk of warm crusty bread—or grilled cheese if we’re really committing to the situation—and dinner is done.

Even better, it freezes beautifully, so make extra and stash some away for the inevitable night when cooking dinner sounds like one responsibility too many.

Future you will be delighted.

Make this one when: the temperature suddenly drops, you’re wearing fuzzy socks, and dinner needs to feel like a hug.

Get the Copycat Panera Autumn Squash Soup recipe →

3. Autumn Butternut Squash, Goat Cheese & Bacon Pizza

And now we leave sensible fall cooking behind.

Come with me.

This Autumn Butternut Squash, Goat Cheese & Bacon Pizza is what happens when I look at pizza dough and think, “But what if fall exploded on it?”

We’ve got roasted butternut squash tossed with honey, cinnamon, and a little chili powder. Honeycrisp apple. Sharp cheddar. Crispy bacon. Creamy goat cheese.

On pizza.

Is it traditional? Absolutely not.

Is it delicious? Ohhhhh yes.

I love this one for a cozy Friday or Saturday night because it feels special without becoming a whole production. Put the pizza in the middle of the table, pour yourself something good, and let people grab slices as they wander through the kitchen.

That’s my kind of entertaining.

Make this one when: it’s Friday night, you want something savory, and ordinary pepperoni isn’t matching your autumnal energy.

Get the Autumn Butternut Squash, Goat Cheese & Bacon Pizza recipe →

4. High Altitude Browned Butter Pumpkin Bread with Chocolate Chips

Okay, pumpkin people. Your moment has arrived.

And I have brought browned butter.

My High Altitude Browned Butter Pumpkin Bread with Chocolate Chips takes classic pumpkin bread and gives it just enough extra oomph to make it special without making it complicated.

The browned butter adds this wonderful warm, nutty flavor underneath all those fall spices, and the semi-sweet chocolate chips melt into little pockets throughout the loaf.

This recipe was also created for my fellow high-altitude bakers because baking up here can occasionally feel like the flour and leavening have formed an alliance against us.

And this particular pumpkin bread comes with a very Mommy & the Ivy story involving Ivy, ARFID, and the elementary-school Pumpkin Incident that essentially ended pumpkin’s chances with my daughter forever.

So you’ll have to enjoy this one with me.

Make this one when: you’ve officially surrendered to pumpkin season and want something wonderful with your morning coffee.

Get the High Altitude Browned Butter Pumpkin Bread recipe →

5. Spider Web Brownies for Halloween

Of course we couldn’t make it through October without chocolate.

These Spider Web Brownies are exactly my kind of Halloween treat because they look like you tried much harder than you actually did.

And that, my friends, is a valuable life skill.

Start with your favorite brownies, melt some white chocolate, pipe a simple spider-web design across the top, and suddenly you’ve become a Halloween person.

The little spiders in my version are plastic because swanky I am not, and apparently my commitment to realism ends well before crafting edible arachnids.

I’m okay with that.

These would be so cute for Halloween movie night, a party, or just waiting on the kitchen counter when your people come home.

Make this one when: you want a Halloween treat that’s festive, chocolatey, and doesn’t require an advanced degree in cake decorating.

Get the Spider Web Brownies idea →