Happy Fat Tuesday!

It's hard to believe that Ash Wednesday is just about here--even though it is soooooooo late this year. It always seems to sneak up on me! Anyway, that means that today is Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras. My HS freshman daughter's French 2 class is celebrating Mardi Gras today at school. She took on the "culinary expert" role for her group's project (another group member is researching the history of French Mardi Gras traditions, and someone else is reporting on some other aspect which completely escapes me at the moment!). Her assignment: research and bake a King Cake to share with the class. She and I worked together last night to bake the cake and had such a blast doing it! The Gulf Coast-style King Cake that we made is a cinnamon-filled coffee ring, and while it baked, the house smelled heavenly!! She was so pleased with how it turned out. We cut it into small wedges for sampling (as well as to make it easier for her to carry it to school). After we'd cut 36 wedges for sharing and completely filled the plastic container for transporting them, we still had about 1/4 of the cake left. Guess what we're having for dessert after supper tonight!!!!

We were so thrilled, we just had to take pictures (even though the post-sunset lighting conditions in the kitchen were less than ideal). Here's what it looked like:

Yum!! The recipe my daughter found (you can find it HERE) was really simple--it's based on Pillsbury Crescent Rolls!! I think we'll be adding this recipe to the "keepers" file ;).

And while I'm sharing non-crafting photos, I thought I'd share a photo of some visitors we had last week. Last week I noticed that a lot of deer have been hanging out in our neighborhood. One morning I saw about 20 deer amble down our road just before sunrise. Just before bedtime that evening, we spotted five or six deer bedding down in our neighbors' yard. I was stunned the next morning to see them still there, right out in the open! I grabbed my camera for this shot, taken right through the sidelight windows of our front door, not quite 30 feet away. The sun was just starting to come up, and they were just getting ready to move on.

Well, I have tons to do today, so I've got to be moving along. I hope that my daughter's Mardi Gras celebration goes well today--and I hope that you have a fabulous day yourself!

Thanks for visiting!
Emily

More Holiday Treats

Today I'm continuing to share some of the projects that I've made as a member of the Purple Onion Designs 2013 Holiday Design Team. This December I'm making lots of holiday treats to give as gifts to teachers, friends, and neighbors. You've already seen my packaging for my homemade caramel corn and chocolate peanut clusters. Today I'm showing off more holiday treats. Let's start with some peppermint bark!

This is another super easy candy to make at home! And the results look (and taste!) so impressive. Once I've made my peppermint bark, I package it in small cellophane treat bags and slip it into one of these sweet little gift bags. I made it using a downloadable template for sale from DeNami Design. Simply print onto the back of a piece of patterned paper, cut, fold, and adhere. Done! I dressed up the tote with a fun tag I made with Purple Onion Designs rubber stamps: label from Vintage Journaling Set, Holiday Treats Logo, and Treat Word Set. Have I told you how much I love my Treat Words??? I've used them to label lots of candies and treats, but this set is perfect for cookies, too, with words like "linzer," "sugar," "gingerbread," "snickerdoodle," "thumbprint," and "shortbread." YUM!! So perfect for holiday baking!!!

I'm also making chocolate-dipped pretzel logs as edible gifts this year. Here's a peek at how I'm packaging them.

I'm using my beloved Treat Word Set again, of course! I also used the Homemade Treats Logo and the largest label from the Plain Jane Labels set.

How is your holiday goodie making coming along? We did the bulk of our baking last weekend, making our traditional stash of Christmas cookies that we'll keep for our own munching. We made (and decorated!) cut-out sugar cookies, holiday chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter blossoms, and satin-glazed date cookies. Everything is so delicious! I just love having a variety of cookies to indulge in :). You know, it's funny, we always do a ton of baking in December but do tend to keep it to ourselves. It just seems more practical to give candies and treats as gifts instead of cookies--I always feel like they are less likely to go stale than cookies (and who wants to receive a stale cookie as a gift???). And I'm not going to lie:  candy & treat making (or at least the ones I tend to make) require fewer ingredients and a bit less effort than cookie baking. And when you are mass producing for gift-giving, that really seems to pay off!!

I hope your day is going just swimmingly today! Thanks so much for dropping by for a little slice of bliss,
Emily

P.S. Just in case you are interested, here is my recipe for peppermint bark.

Peppermint Bark

1 14-ounce bag of Make 'n Mold White Vanilla Flavored Candy Wafers
7 candy canes, crushed

Simply melt the vanilla candy wafers in the microwave according to the package directions and then stir in the crushed candy canes. Pour onto a waxed paper-lined baking sheet and spread out out into a "puddle" of uniform thickness. Allow chocolate to harden at room temperature and then break into bite-sized pieces. No need to refrigerate!

For a different size bag of candy melts, simply use 1 candy cane for every 2 ounces of candy melts. So for a 12-ounce bag of candy melts, use 6 candy canes; or for a 16-ounce bag, use 8 candy canes.

Holiday Treats

Today I'm continuing to bring you ideas for holiday gift-giving using Purple Onion Designs rubber stamps as part of the 2013 Holiday Design Team! Today the team is focusing on holiday food gifts, and I have a couple to share.

My high school freshman daughter loves to give her teachers a little something at the holidays to say thanks for all of their hard work! She has 8 different teachers this year, so we had to come up with something that has a low cost but a big impact. We decided to go with small bags of homemade caramel corn this year, and here's our design for the packaging:

I decorated a small white paper bag by stamping POD's Candy Cane Background in red, topping the bag with a punched red border, and then centering an embossed label stamped with the awesome Celebrate the Season Noteblock over top of the whole design. So festive!

The tag I tied onto the bag of caramel corn was so easy to make! All I needed were the ever-useful Holiday Treats Logo stamp and accompanying Treat Word Set. I stamped the logo in red on white cardstock and then had fun stamping the "caramel" and "crunch" words to complete the package :).

Now, the last time I shared photos of my family's "famous" caramel corn, I had comments from readers asking how to make it. So I figured it's high time that I shared the recipe! Here it is:

Oven-Baked Caramel Corn

4 quarts popped popcorn (we usually use our air popper to pop about 1/2 cup unpopped corn)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Heat oven to 200 degrees F. Place popped corn in large ungreased roasting pan (I use our black enamel turkey roaster! Or divide popped corn between 2 rectangular 9" x 13" cake pans.) Heat brown sugar, butter, corn syrup, and salt in saucepan, stirring occasionally, until bubbly around the edges. Continue cooking over medium heat for 5 minutes.

Remove from heat; stir in baking soda until foamy. Pour over popped corn, stirring until corn is well coated. Bake 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes.

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We also like to give gifts of homemade candies to family and neighbors. My aunt particularly loves our chocolate peanut clusters, so she'll be getting a batch in the mail in a few weeks. Here is the packaging I designed with Purple Onion Designs stamps to dress up them up.

The plastic clamshell container is repurposed packaging from a dozen mini cupcakes I picked up at our grocery store's bakery recently. It's perfect for holding mounded peanut clusters! After whipping up a batch of peanut clusters to nestle inside, all I needed to do was decorate the package lid. I used these Purple Onion Designs rubber stamps: Homemade Treats Logo, Treat Words Set, the larger label from the Deluxe Labels Set, and the Happy Holidays border from the Holiday Border Tape Set.

Making these yummy chocolate peanut clusters is even simpler than the caramel corn! Here's my super-easy recipe:

Chocolate Peanut Clusters

1 14-ounce bag of Make 'n Mold Milk Chocolate Flavored Candy Wafers
2 1/4 cups salted peanuts (not dry-roasted)

Simply melt the chocolate candy wafers in the microwave according to the package directions and then stir in the peanuts. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto waxed paper-lined baking sheets. Allow chocolate to harden at room temperature and then store in a covered container. No need to refrigerate!

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That's all I have to share for today! I hope I haven't made you *too* hungry ;). Don't forget about the Purple Onion Designs Christmas sale that's going on now:

Oh, and be sure to swing by the Purple Onion Designs blog today for lots more ideas for food from the POD Holiday Design Team! 

Thanks for dropping by!
Emily

Happy Presidents' Day

Today is Presidents' Day in the United States. It has a long and somewhat convoluted history (which you may read up on here, if you are so inclined), but ostensibly commemorates the birthday of George Washington, first president of the United States of America.

In memories of the Februaries of my youth, visions of arrow-pierced frilly hearts, paper busts of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington (both of whom were born in February), cupids, and cherry pies will be forever entwined. Yes, I included cherry pie in that list. Remember the myth that when George Washington chopped down a cherry tree as a youngster, he responsibly fessed up, "Father, I cannot tell a lie; I chopped down the cherry tree"? Over the years, February became the time for baking cherry pies to honor Washington's birthday--and it was no different in my house. My mom often baked a cherry pie (or two) in February to celebrate--whether it was Washington or the incomparable goodness of the tart red cherry we were celebrating, I'm not sure we knew. But cherries and February go together like a horse and carriage in my mind.

And somehow cherries migrated to an association with Valentine's Day for me, as well. I remember going to our town's Ben Franklin five-and-dime store in the 1970s and 1980s to buy cherry sours candy by the pound from the candy counter. They were only available in February, so that became a Valentine's Day treat. When I started to learn how to bake as a teen, I made my share of cherry cobblers (so much easier to master than pie!) as a special Valentine's Day dessert for my family--those February cherries always fit the "red" theme of the meal I planned for that night.

So now my Valentine/February cherries live on. Recently it has become my tradition to bake my sweet hubby a cherry pie for Valentine's Day. Conveniently, his favorite dessert is cherry pie, and since he is as sweet as cherry pie, it fits into my vision of a cherry-laced February--and all is right with the world. :) I took time last Thursday morning to bake his traditional cherry pie and couldn't have been more pleased with the results!! Probably the best cherry pie I've ever made, so I couldn't resist taking a few photos--just in case my pies never again turn our quite this perfect ;).

Presidents' Day doesn't seem to be such a big deal any more. Elementary schools (or at least my kids' schools) aren't decorated with a profusion of cupids and presidents' heads in February, and Presidents' Day seems to be more about big auto sales than cherry pies these days. But in case you'd like to revisit the Presidents' Day cherry pie tradition, I'm sharing my recipe here. And don't forget--there's no statute of limitations on cherry pies. You can make one any time it tickles your fancy!!

Tart Cherry Pie

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3 Tbsp. corn starch

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

2 cans (14.5 oz. each) red tart cherries in water

1/4 tsp. almond extract

1/3 Tbsp. butter

2 crusts for a 9-inch pie (I use Pillsbury refrigerated pie crusts)

Red decorating sugar

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Drain the cherries and reserve the juice from only one can. In a saucepan, combine sugar, cornstarch, and cinnamon. Stir in reserved cherry juice. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture boils and thickens. Remove from heat. Add the almond extract and gently stir in drained cherries, being careful not to mix in extra cherry juice--I recommend lifting the cherries from their drainer by the spoonful, rather than dumping in the entire mass at once. Pour filling (it may be slightly runny at this point, but will thicken perfectly while baking) into pastry-lined glass pie pan. Dot with butter. Use heart-shaped cookie cutters to cut vent holes (four work perfectly!) in the top crust, place across top of pie, tuck excess top crust under the edges of the bottom crust, press together to form thick crust edge, and flute. Sprinkle pie with decorative red sugar. Bake 15 minutes, then cover edges with aluminum foil (or use a silicone pie crust shield like this one as I do), and return to oven to bake for an additional 15 minutes. Cool pie for several hours to allow filling to thicken before slicing. Serves 8.

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Now, remember how I said last week (in this post) that I wasn't exactly sure how much snow we had gotten here in the big Blizzard of 2013? Well, we got the official scoop in our hometown weekly newspaper last Thursday: we received a total of 28 inches!!! How about that?? I guess an awful lot of snow had been blown away from the areas I'd measured by the time I got outside to take my measurements. And here I'd been feeling cheated that our snowfall total hadn't fallen within the "advertised" totals of 24" to 30" in the weather advisories leading up to the storm. I guess I needn't have worried!! ;)

Sorry I don't have a papercrafted project to share today, but I'm hoping that a little cherry pie eye candy will make up for it. My kids are on vacation from school this week for February break, so I'm not sure how much I'll be around the ol' blog this week. But I hope to catch up with you all again soon!

Thanks so much for dropping by and sharing a little slice of {cherry pie} bliss with me today!

Emily