Apple recipes aren't limited to only pies, crumbles, and cakes. If you're looking to enhance your favourite baked goods with a touch of natural fruit sweetness and moisture, homemade applesauce is an excellent multipurpose ingredient to have on hand. With just a few basic ingredients and no special equipment needed, you can make this apple puree by boiling apples until they are soft and then blending them. You can also store your homemade applesauce in the fridge and use it whenever your baked goods need a little more liquid. Because of its natural fruitiness and capacity to add moisture without masking other flavours, applesauce is a great addition to baking recipes. Depending on the baked item, you may need to change the amount of unsweetened applesauce to replace some of the sugar or fat in specific recipes. Its tender texture is ideal for baked goods including muffins, quick breads, spice cakes, and brownies. You have complete control over the sweetness, texture, and flavour of homemade applesauce, which is its finest feature. Apples that are naturally sweet may not need much sugar, and a dash of cinnamon adds a cosy touch that is perfect for fall-themed baked goods. This applesauce is perfect for your next baking session since it can be chilled and stored in the fridge for short-term use or frozen in measured amounts.

Pumpkin recipes tend to be either elaborate baked goodies or sweet pies, which is what makes this maple pumpkin butter a welcome change when it comes to preparing autumn food. You just need a saucepan, seven ingredients, five minutes of preparation time and half an hour of simmering. What comes out is a thick, velvety, lightly spiced spread that works on breakfast toast, on top of pancakes, as easily as it works as a gift in a small jar. If you like apple butter, think of this as its autumnal cousin. Pumpkin butter has the same smooth, spoonable texture, but it's lighter and not overly sweet. The reason is that instead of using water or cream, the pumpkin puree is cooked with unsweetened apple juice, which brings out the pumpkin flavour just well enough that even people who aren't very enthusiastic about pumpkin flavour tend to enjoy it. Pumpkin pie spice does the rest of the flavour work, adding a warmth with vanilla rounding things out, and a quarter cup of maple syrup adds a subtle, caramel-like depth without hijacking the flavour of the butter. Everything in this pumpkin butter goes into a deep, heavy-bottomed saucepan and comes up to a soft boil over medium-high heat. Then the heat drops, the lid goes on slightly tilted so steam can escape, and the butter simmers for 30 minutes with an occasional stir to keep things moving. The mixture becomes very thick and bubbles and spits as it cooks, so you need a deep pot and a tilted lid to keep the stovetop clean. Adjust the thickness with more apple juice. Once the liquid is done cooking and has infused, it is cooled and used as an infused butter.

Try this vegan mayonnaise recipe that strips the usual mayo process down to three main vegan ingredients: soy milk, oil and salt, and skips the egg entirely without losing the thick, creamy texture that makes mayonnaise... mayonnaise. It's a useful recipe to have on hand for anyone who has gone vegan or has an egg allergy, since good plant-based mayo tends to be expensive at the store, and most homemade versions online either split easily or need constant hand-whisking to come together properly. Unlike other plant milks, soy milk used in this vegan mayonnaise recipe contains natural emulsifiers, largely from its own lecithin, which is exactly the property regular mayonnaise relies on egg yolks to provide. That's what allows the soy milk to bind cleanly with the oil into something fluffy and mayo-like, rather than separating into an oily, curdled mess the way almond or oat milk tends to when swapped in as a substitute. Using a full-fat, ‘original’ soy milk rather than a low-fat variety matters here too, since the extra fat content supports a firmer emulsion. Beyond the three core ingredients in this vegan mayonnaise recipe, apple cider vinegar (or lime juice or white vinegar, if that's what is available) is used to add a milk tanginess, garlic powder and black pepper to add more savouriness, and a spoonful of Dijon mustard, which, much like in traditional mayonnaise, helps stabilise the emulsion further while adding its own sharp flavour.