Thanksgiving / Fall Recipe - Cranberry Upside Downer

Dorie Greenspan's book Baking: From My Home to Yours is my absolute favorite recipe book for baking.  It was the first baking book I owned.  My husband purchased it for me when we were dating after I had expressed an interest in learning how to bake from scratch.  Each recipe is filled with plenty of details, that while sometimes time consuming, truly make all the difference in your finished treat.



That's why when I get a chance to experiment, I always flip through the pages of this book first.  This time I was looking for something for an office Thanksgiving potluck.  Nothing shouts "THANKSGIVING" and "FALL" like cranberries!  And that's why I went for Dorie Greenspan's Cranberry Upside-Downer.

That gooey layer on top of a thin, cinnamon-y cake looked too good to pass up!

The first step had me melting butter and dissolving sugar in it to start the process for the gooey glaze that would go on top of the upside down cake.  A new twist for me!

I love the colors when you mix your flour with spices.  And the smell?  YUM.

I used frozen cranberries, so the butter did congeal as Dorie warned it would.  I think that's also why some of them had a darker color than others.  Fresh is probably the way to go with all fruit, but every year cranberries go on sale and I can't resist buying a few extra bags to store for later!

Action shot creaming the butter, I seriously love my stand mixer.  I also wanted to show the consistency of the batter, I always have questions about that step when trying a new recipe.  It was definitely thicker than cake batter, more like a muffin batter consistency.


The finished Cranberry Upside-Downer!  You can find Dorie's recipe in her Baking book (linked at the top) or on her website.  Since I was making this ahead of time for a potluck, I wasn't able to taste it right away.  I kept it at room temperature over night in a covered cake dish and it was still good the next day.  Which means it's a great item to bake ahead for Thanksgiving before the kitchen gets taken over for the turkey! Enjoy!

Thing I Made Today - Washi Tape Light Switch Cover

I have a confession to make...I get very excited for new projects, but often it's hard for me to finish them.  Especially if they take a lot of concentration.  With that in mind, I thought it might be cool to do a section for quick projects!  Today I want to highlight my new obsession in the first post dedicated to quick projects:  Washi Tape!

I've been looking around for temporary ways to decorate apartment walls and I found so many amazing ideas for Washi Projects.  Washi tape really is ideal for apartments because it has a very light stickiness to it.  Strong enough to adhere but not so strong that it will leave residue when you remove it.  Or at least that's the story so far, my apartment gets SUPER warm when the heat turns on, so we'll see how it stands up!

For my first washi tape project, I decided to tackle my light switch covers.  They needed cleaning anyway.  I found some pretty red tape and decided to start with the switch near the kitchen.

I taped right over the openings and cut and shaped the tape as I went.  Try to line up your pattern better than I did!

 Here's the final product!  I just poked the screw through the tape when putting the cover back on the wall.


This really is a great way to dress up an otherwise white, plain hallway in your apartment or home! It goes very quickly, maybe 5-10 mins on each cover.  I say "each" because I liked the look so much I did three more!

While I really loved the chevron pattern, and the vibrant red, these light switches really look a bit too Christmas-y for year round decoration.  So I might leave it up for now and try a new pattern in January....

....oh man, you guys, it's almost Christmas Craft Season!

Halloween Party!

If there's one thing I love, it's Halloween!  This year we had our festive gathering with some ghoulishly themed treats.  We really enjoy having friends over, and it's a great chance to get some baking done.  Here are some highlights that I thought would be cool to share, and hopeful inspire you for your next Spook-tacular gathering:

Witch Fingers

• Inspiration by: Kitchme Witch Fingers 
• NOTE: don't forget the green food coloring (maybe I'm missing it, but I couldn't find that listed anywhere in the recipe).  Also, the almonds definitely fall right out of the fingers after baking, so I used some leftover icing from the Teeth Cookies (below) to cement the nails in place.

Teeth Cookies

• Inspiration from: Girl Who Ate Everything

As you can see from the inspiring blog post, these were supposed to be Dracula Dentures.  I kept trying to make my almond slivers look like fangs and just failed, so I opted for regular teeth.  Still Halloween-y, I think.

I used a great stand-by chocolate chip cookie recipe (one that would make thinner, flat cookies so you have enough to cut them in half).  I will admit that I cheated a bit on this one, though.  I bought white icing and used gel food coloring to make it a deep pinky/red color, perfect for gums.


Owl Cupcakes

For these little guys, I went for the MEGA STUFF Oreos on chocolate cupcakes with a chocolate glaze-style frosting.  Let's face it, the best part of the Oreo is the cream!  I had some mini M&Ms on hand and used those for the eyes and beak.  I loved the way the big eyes contrasted with the tiny little beaks.

Hot Dog Mummies
...These....did not work so well for me...

I LOVE pigs in a blanket, so I thought these were a no-brainer!  But I also thought that instead of using the look of the ones I found on Pintrest (Mummy Dogs), I would just do arms so that they were bite-sized.  Okay, so they're definitely bite-sized...but they definitely do not look like mummies, my bad!

They were still tasty though!


Halloween Jello Jiggler Shots

It was actually really hard for me to find a recipe online that didn't require an unreasonable amount of jello boxes, so I'll put my recipe below.  Really, I just wanted to use my super special molds, so I couldn't make my jigglers in bulk.  The recipe I used is:

• 2 boxes of jello (regular boxes, not the jumbo sized) (NOTE: you can mix flavors for an extra special jiggler shot!)
• 1 cup boiling water
• 1/2 cup booze of your choice (I used vodka)
• Refrigerate until solid
• To remove: I dip my molds in a little warm water for a few seconds (too long and you'll melt your jigglers) and then carefully peel the sides before trying to remove the jiggler

Decor

A little DIY to go along with the baking.  We had a bar scene complete with some flies and eyeballs and spooky straws, fizzy punch with a gelatin hand floating in it, and, of course, you can always ask a friend to lay down on the floor while you slowly put masking tape around her body for your very own crime scene!

I hope you all enjoyed a little peak into our Halloween party!