November 2021

Hello!

It’s November, and I have a ton of fun stuff planned for Hummingbird High!

First things first—this blog’s TENTH birthday is coming up fast. It’s this Saturday on November 6th!!! Honestly, I just cannot believe that I’ve been baking and blogging for Hummingbird High for TEN YEARS. I have a lot of feelings and emotions, all of which I will undoubtedly share with you in an old-school-style, overly emotional blog post featuring my favorite chocolate birthday cake recipe.

Second, this November on Hummingbird High will be all about Thanksgiving. I’ve decided to spend the month focusing almost exclusively on developing Thanksgiving-related recipes. Why? Last year, you guys nearly crashed the site. So many of you logged on to bake my updated, more modernized take on the famous Libby’s pumpkin pie recipe (which recently came second in a Best Pumpkin Pie Bake-Off on Camille Styles!).

Inspired by your enthusiasm, I wanted to introduce you guys to even more of my favorite Thanksgiving baking recipes. I plan on sharing some of my favorite make ahead bread roll recipes, as well as a variety of pies for dessert. Get stoked!

In Case You Missed It: New Recipes and Posts on Hummingbird High

And in case you missed it, I published the following new recipes and posts on Hummingbird High. Here’s a round-up of everything new:

• Small Batch Pumpkin Muffins
  
  
• Caramelized Garlic and Goat Cheese Tart (This recipe technically lives over on my sponsor Montchevre’s website—check it out!)
  
  
• Pumpkin Chai Bread
  
  
• Fall Spice Leche Flan (This is the flan you see up top, and it’s another recipe that lives over on my sponsor the American Egg Board’s website. The recipe is one of my recent faves, so be sure to check it out!)
  
  
• Small Batch Apple Almond Upside Down Mini Cakes
  
  
• Caramelized Onion, Goat Cheese, and Fig Pizza (Another one on Montchevre’s website!)
  
  
• Pumpkin Neapolitan Cookies

Below are pictures of the two most popular recipes from the month—Small Batch Pumpkin Muffins and Pumpkin Chai Bread—to inspire you:

Food For Thought

This past month, I also spent a LOT of time thinking and reading about food beyond the baking recipes you see on this blog. Here are the ideas and issues that resonated with me:

• A TikTok music video explaining why blog post recipes are so long. This one’s dedicated to all the folks who use my recipes but then email and DM me to complain that the blog post was too long. I’m just gonna drop this here, lol. Be sure to catch Part 2, too! 
  
  
• “Making A Case For Vegan Filipino Food.” in Bon Appetit Magazine. If you’re a long time reader of Hummingbird High, you probably know that I’m Filipino. I was born in the Philippines; my family later emigrated abroad to the Netherlands and the United States. But Filipino food always has a special place in my heart—it’s part of how I stay connected to my heritage. Filipino food tends to be meat-driven, but recently, Filipino American chefs are making an effort to make it more vegan and plant-based. I have mixed feelings about this (that are far too long to capture in a paragraph), but appreciate the attempt nonetheless!
  
  
• “London Chef Elizabeth Haigh’s Cookbook Withdrawn After Plagiarism Allegations.” in Eater London. I’ll admit, I had know idea who Elizabeth Haigh was prior to reading this article. However, the article is worth reading alone for its discussion of plagiarism in the cookbook and recipe development world. It does a great job of examining who gets to be the face and public figure of certain cuisines (spoiler alert: it is often white or white-presenting folks), and what that means for the food world as a whole.
  
  
• “’Sprinklegate’ sinks a U.K. bakery’s top sellers after topping is found to be illegal.” in NPR. I’m sure you guys know this, but there are a ton of American foods that are banned abroad because of certain ingredients, substances, and chemicals that are legal here and illegal for human consumption elsewhere. One of those ingredients? Food coloring. To wit—a British bakery was recently investigated and fined for using American sprinkles in some of its baked goods. As a result, they are no longer able to sell those cookies at the bakery! Womp. Really makes you wonder what we’re putting in our bodies over here in the US, eh?

Recipes and Resources To Save

And here are the recipes and cooking-related resources I saved these last few weeks:

• Sally’s Pumpkin Spice Roll Cookies made me gasp! I love the way the cookies look like cinnamon buns.
  
  
• One of the most frequently asked questions I get from beginner bakers and readers from abroad is about buttermilk. Specifically, what even is buttermilk, anyway?! Well, here you go: “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Buttermilk” in Eater.
  
  
• Two shows I really enjoyed watching this last month? AppleTV’s Ted Lasso and Netflix’s Squid Game. Both shows, oddly enough, featured two desserts (shortbread biscuits from Ted Lasso, and dalgona honeycomb candy from Squid Game) whose recipes went viral last month. I can’t wait to try them both! Especially the dalgona honeycomb candy—especially given that I’m obsessed with the coffee version, lol.
  
  
• “We Tried 6 Methods for Preventing a Bundt Cake from Sticking to the Pan and the Winner Was Pure Magic” in The Kitchn. My method for spraying the $hit out of your bundt pan with cooking spray is apparently not the best, lol. Oops!
  
  
• Cookie season is almost here (though, for me, EVERY season is cookie season, lol) and I want y’all to be prepared! Check out “10 Essential Cookie Baking Tips that Pros and Seasoned Bakers Swear By” in Apartment Therapy and “The Absolute Best Way to Make Chewy Cookies, According to So Many Tests” in Food52 to get stoked.

@hummingbirdhigh

obviously obsessed ##booktok ##booklover ##bookclub ##bookrecommendations ##cookbook ##bookstan ##foryou ##foryoupage ##fyp

♬ The King – Sarah Kinsley

New Cookbooks To Try

So many of my friends, acquaintances, and peers wrote amazing cookbooks that came out last month (or are about to)! Here are a few of my faves:

• The Cardamom Trail: Delicious Bakes Inspired By India by Chetna Makan (Okay, this isn’t “new”, but it’s “new-to-me” and I’ve been loving it!)
  
  
• Cookies: The New Classics by Jesse Szewczyk (If I had to pick only one fave new book, Jesse’s book would probably be it!)
  
  
• Mooncakes and Milk Bread: Sweet and Savory Recipes Inspired by Chinese Bakeries by Kristina Cho (I’m obsessed with Kristina’s food blog and think that her cookbook is a genuine triumph!)
  
  
• One Tin Bakes Easy: Foolproof Cakes, Traybakes, Bars And Bites From Gluten-Free To Vegan And Beyond by Edd Kimber (I had the pleasure of meeting Edd on a press trip to Israel a few years ago, and can personally attest that he is an incredibly talented baker!)

Follow Me On TikTok(!) For Cookbook Stuff

By the way, what do you guys think of my TikTok? I’ve decided it’s finally time to start a TikTok for @hummingbirdhigh (so please give me a follow—I currently have a grand total of 73 followers, womp).

I resisted starting a TikTok for a long time because it felt very different from the type of work I like to do. I’ve always felt like you need to be beautiful and/or funny to have a successful TikTok. Quite frankly, I am neither (or, realistically, it takes a lot more time and energy for me to be either), so I had zero interest in starting one.

I also wanted my TikTok to be its own distinct thing from my Instagram account. I had no idea what I wanted my TikTok to be… until I realized I frequently found myself on BookTok. I loved videos like this one, where the creator would share his or her favorite books and give recommendations.

Then I realized—I could do the same with my cookbook collection! I have over 500 cookbooks (okay, I haven’t officially counted, but I think it’s around that figure). And because I spend so much time developing recipes for this blog, don’t often get the chance to use them as much as I’d like to. So I’m really hoping TikTok will encourage me to do more of that, as well as share behind-the-scenes of which cookbooks I get a lot of recipe inspiration from.

So if all of that sounds like your jam, FOLLOW ME ON TIKTOK. It’s officially happening!

Finally, On A Lighthearted Note

• This couple got married at the world’s most beautiful Taco Bell. I’ll admit, I have been to that Taco Bell. It IS very beautiful, lol.

Okay, whew! That’s all for now, folks. I hope you all are staying safe and healthy! Please let me know how you’re doing in the comments below, and feel free to share the ideas and issues that are floating around in your heads, too.

XO
Michelle