The last of the summer rays are gone. A familiar season is back with changing leaves, autumn colors, hearty cuisine and cozy, comfy attire.
Pumpkin and pumpkin spice lattes and treats are back for the autumn season. Baltimore is home to a variety of places to lasso the best of this fall fare.
Mindpub Café
Location: 554 East Fort Ave., Riverside neighborhood. mindpubcafe.com
Mindpub Café is a family-run spot nestled in Baltimore’s Riverside neighborhood at 554 East Fort Avenue. It serves as a cozy café that offers locally sourced coffee, creative New York-style bagel sandwiches, lunch, salads and pastries.
They have their pumpkin spice lattes available in the fall for customers.
“We mix pumpkin puree into our pumpkin spice drinks. It adds a velvety creaminess to it,” said Mindpub Café owner Nikki McGowan.
Order and Chaos Coffee
Location: 1410 Key Highway. orderchaoscoffee.com
An energetic coffee shop where you can eat, drink, create and socialize during your visit. Order and Chaos offers coffee, cold brew, espresso drinks, tea, specialty drinks, and breakfast and lunch menu items for customers.
Ceremony Coffee Roasters
Multiple Locations in: Bethesda, Baltimore, Annapolis. ceremonycoffee.com
Since 2002, Ceremony Coffee Roasters has offered coffee menu items, tea options, pastry baked goods, and more to their customers. Also available are coffee subscriptions and a shop to purchase merchandise, coffee and supplies.
Interested in learning more about coffee? They also offer classes, events, wholesale education and brewing guides.
Tous les Jours
Locations: Towson, Catonsville, Arundel Mills, Elliott City, and Columbia. tljus.com
Tous les Jours is a French Asian bakery using the finest ingredients to create their freshly baked breads, cakes and pastries. Alongside their artisan baked goods, they offer beverages such as tea, coffee, smoothies, and more.
Red Emma’s
Location: 3138 Greenmount Avenue. redemmas.org
Since its founding in 2004, Red Emma’s has been a worker-owned/cooperative radical bookstore, restaurant/café, and space for community events.
They offer a variety of vegan and vegetarian-friendly menu items and catering. Red Emma’s also has a full-service coffee bar and full bar with beer, wine and cocktail options.
Atwater’s
Locations: Catonsville, Kenilworth, Belvedere. atwatersfood.com
Atwater’s began as one farmers’ market stall, baking only one kind of bread. Today, they have three cafés and attend over 12 farmers’ markets in the Baltimore area, specializing in bread, pastries, soup, sandwiches, breakfast, salad, cheese, coffee, jam, and more.
They pride themselves on making handmade food using fresh ingredients from local farms (including their own urban farm) and believe in supporting the local community of farmers and producers to bring you food that tastes good and that you can feel good about.
Atwater’s most popular pumpkin items are their pumpkin lattes and pumpkin bites. They are mainstays that Atwater’s customers can expect every fall.
“For those who enjoy baking or making coffee at home, we also offer our homemade pumpkin syrup in bottles,” said Atwater’s brand manager and marketing coordinator Andy Davies. “We (half-jokingly) like to call our pumpkin lattes and treats ‘pumpkin, not pumpkin spice’ because we want people to know we use fresh roasted pumpkin in our recipes. We usually are one of the last places that start rolling out their fall seasonal items. But it’s important that we can get local pumpkins to use and not just rely on premade pumpkin spice mixes or artificial flavorings.”
Roggenart European Bakery, Bistro & Café
Locations: Towson, Baltimore, Elliott City, Catonsville, and others. roggenart.com
Recipe courtesy of Marketing Coordinator Sherryn Gaworecki
With its German name meaning “The art of rye,” Roggenart celebrates its dedication to traditional European baking and café culture.
Roggenart is known for artisanal breads and pastries, the “Crookie,” a “third place” vibe (outside of work and home), quality ingredients, and delicious coffee.
This year, Roggenart offers all-day breakfast, lunch, catering services, a royalty program, and new locations. A line of pumpkin and pumpkin spice drinks and treats are available this fall.
Roggenart has its own pumpkin spice blend with a distinct taste much different than anywhere else, said Roggenart’s Marketing Coordinator Sherryn Gaworecki.
“Every year we launch our Pumpkin Danish around October because we want to position our fall foods when it’s actually fall. We have brand-new filo triangles with savory blends such as Mediterranean (just launched) and our Spanakopita, which is bursting with feta and spinach.”
Pumpkin Syrup
Recipe courtesy of Atwater’s Assistant Production Manager, Joe Sordillo
Ingredients (makes about one quart of syrup):
1 quart of water
1.2 pounds of sugar
1.325 pounds of canned pumpkin
1/3 tsp each of nutmeg, allspice and cinnamon
1/16 tsp of cloves
3 oz of fresh-roasted pumpkin
Instructions:
Add everything to a pot and put it on high heat, stirring constantly to combine. Once it reaches a boil, turn off the heat and use a hand blender to puree the fresh-roasted pumpkin.
Lastly, strain to remove any remaining seeds, let it cool, then bottle and store in the refrigerator.
Davies shared that the syrup can be added straight and mixed into your coffee or drink of choice.
It also works great as a simple syrup replacement in an espresso martini, an Old Fashioned and other drinks. Atwater’s Catonsville location will have a few cocktails incorporating it in the fall.
For baking, the syrup works great brushed on as a glaze for donuts, cookies, biscuits, pancakes, French toast, muffins, or anything you want to add a little sweetness and fall flavor to.
Pumpkin Spice Latte Muffins: The Morning Treat
Recipe courtesy of Roggenart’s creative district and regional managers Ani Tossounian and Angelica Murillo
Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup Roggenart’s pumpkin flavor syrup (Torani)
1/2 cup milk (your choice)
1/3 cup melted butter
1 large egg
Optional: Pumpkin seeds or a streusel topping for garnish
Instructions:
Preheat your oven to 400 F (200 C) and line a muffin tin with paper liners.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, spices and salt.
In a separate bowl, combine the pumpkin syrup, milk, melted butter and egg.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. A few lumps are fine. This is the Roggenart Way for a tender muffin!
Fill the muffin cups almost to the top. Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Let them cool slightly before enjoying.