Happy Halloween, boys and girls! Sorry it’s been a minute or two since I last posted. Much going on, including massive stress in my actual real job (what, you thought I was a full-time cook, blogger and podcaster?! Only in my dreams), family drama, and a recent two-week bucket list vacation to the East Coast where we visited Bangor, Maine to do the Stephen King tour. We also went to Boston for a few days, traveled to Fall River to tour the Lizzie Borden murder house (extremely creepy), traveled by boat for a day trip to Salem, and last but most certainly not least, spent a few days in New York City during which time I went up to Sleepy Hollow. Oh, it was a dream trip and has me in total Goth horror mode, which I hadn’t felt in awhile. Shame on me, a Goth at heart, yes I know. But when real life intrudes and continues to rear its ugly head, a gal’s gotta go into survival mode.
Anyway, the day after I got back from my trip, I was notified that the library book I’d put on hold was available. Truth be told, I had forgotten clean about it, but when I saw the title, I was like “holy crap, it’s a sign!” The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel tells the story of Sleepy Hollow and the Headless Horseman – yes, I saw him in Sleepy Hollow! – from the viewpoint of the heroine, Katrina, as you likely surmised from the book title.
The story is quite well done. I went in with not very high expectations, as many of the books I’ve read lately that had great reviews and high praise were, to me anyway, rather dull and written either in a very boring style or in a highly dramatic way with very purple prose. So it was a pleasant surprise to become completely engrossed in the story. All the characters from Washington Irving’s original tale are there, yet with quite a twist to them all. Katrina, of course, tells the story from her perspective and she is quite the independent and feisty heroine, as we’d expect. She’s somewhat spoiled, as she is of course the only child of Baltus Van Tassel and his nameless wife, and so is used to getting her way.
Ichabod Crane is much more handsome and suave than the Irving tale makes him out to be, and the young schoolteacher from Connecticut with large ears and Katrina fall in love and start a dangerous love affair, meeting in the woods near the Hudson River to consummate their passion. Brom Bones, of course, is part of the tale and he is about as expected, arrogant and handsome and taking an immediate dislike to Ichabod as he senses Katrina’s feelings for the itinerant schoolteacher are more than just friendship. And then, there is of course The Headless Horseman himself, who doesn’t actually make an appearance until the very end but whose presence is an essential part of Sleepy Hollow. He appears in Katrina’s dreams frequently and she feels a terrifying connection to him, but chooses to believe he is just that -a dream – until she learns he is actually real.
The story follows the original tale in that Ichabod wants to marry Katrina, Brom challenges him to a duel, and on All Hallow’s Eve, Ichabod mysteriously disappears and only a smashed pumpkin is found in his wake. Katrina does indeed marry Brom, against her own wishes but given that Ichabod is gone, she has no choice. SPOILER ALERT: She is also pregnant with Ichabod’s child and does not want to disgrace her father or herself, and so her child is raised as Brom’s. The twist is that Katrina’s best friend Charlotte is a healer, or as people back then might have called her, a witch. She teaches Katrina herb lore and spells which Katrina, who has still not gotten over Ichabod, uses to conjure spirits to find out what happened to her lover. Brom is involved, as you would expect, but the final denouement, involving the Horseman himself, was just desserts, pardon the foodie pun.
And speaking of which, food abounds in this book. Katrina and Ichabod share picnics by the river and one memorable night together when her parents are out of town. There is, of course, the famous Halloween party scene at the Van Tassel house that is described vividly in Irving’s original story and is recreated in this book, in mouth-watering detail:
Cook, Nancy, Mana, and I had been cooking and baking for days, and it showed. The table was laden with dish after dish to celebrate the harvest: fresh corn bread, roasted chicken and duck, mashed squash and potatoes, carrots glazed in molasses, roasted vegetables, fresh cheeses, beef stew. And the pies: savory meat pies and pumpkin pies and apple pies and cherry pies and peach pies. And of course, Dutch olie-koecken and doughnuts with their hole in the middle, baked with fresh cider from the apple crop. I glanced behind me at Ichabod and saw his eyes were wide with surprise at the fast, at my family’s generosity.
Apple cider doughnuts sounded delicious, and perfect for an autumn treat, so in deference to Ichabod’s appetite, that’s what I made.
INGREDIENTS
1 and 1/2 cups apple cider
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground clove
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 large egg
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup milk, at room temperature*
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon each of ground clove, allspice and nutmeg
6 tablespoons melted butter
METHOD
Preheat the oven to 350°F and spray your doughnut pan with baking spray.
Whisk together in a large bowl the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, allspice, clove, nutmeg and salt.
In the bowl of your most awesome red Kitchen Aid mixer, add the melted butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, milk, vanilla and the egg.
One spoonful at a time, add the dry ingredients to the wet, and mix together until you have a smooth and somewhat thick batter.
A little at a time, add the apple cider just until the batter thins slightly.
Decant the batter into a large plastic bag, zip the top, and snip off a corner of the bag so you can more easily pipe in the batter to the doughnut pan. This will make your life so much better than using a spoon. Trust me.
Bake for 11 minutes, and test them by lightly poking the top of one. The doughnut should bounce back and that’s how you know they’re done.
Let cool for 5 minutes, remove to a platter and let cool another half hour before making the topping by combining the rest of the sugar, cinnamon and spices in a bowl. Dip each doughnut into melted butter, then dip into the sugar-cinnamon mixture. This little touch will take these Dutch apple cider doughnuts to another level that not even the Headless Horseman could throw a pumpkin at!
