November 6, 2008

Ecstatic!

The best thing ever has happened to me! We've had two of our friends ask if they can have Thanksgiving with us! I'm so so so happy because usually, I cook a huge dinner, and it's just me and Justin, or one year Heidi, Justin's sister was there. I was thinking it would jsut be us and Tommy this year, but our friends Ben and Erica and their little one Ethan, as well as our friends Mike and Kim all wanted a place to go! Luckily, I'm guaranteed to have enough food to feed all of them about 5 times over. It makes me happy that this year that food won't have to go to waste!

So, of course, I'm thinking about the holidays, getting to use my china, and all the yummy stuff I'm going to make, and of course I start perusing marthastewart.com.

Here's a few things I've found so far that sound fun/yummy/are just fun to look at!
Pumpkin Spice Cake With Honey Frosting


FOR THE CAKE
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted, plus more for pan
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon pumpkin-pie spice (or 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon, 3/4 teaspoon ginger, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, and 1/8 teaspoon each allspice and cloves)
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 can (15 ounces) solid-pack pumpkin puree
FOR THE HONEY FROSTING
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, very soft
1 bar (8 ounces) regular (or reduced-fat) cream cheese, very soft
1/4 cup honey
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch square baking pan.
In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, salt, and pumpkin-pie spice. In a large bowl, whisk eggs, sugar, butter, and pumpkin puree until combined. Add dry ingredients to pumpkin mixture, and mix gently until smooth.
Turn batter into prepared pan, and smooth top. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out with just a few moist crumbs attached, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool cake 10 minutes in pan, then turn out of pan, and cool completely, right side up, on a rack.
Make Honey Frosting: In a medium bowl, whisk butter, cream cheese, and honey until smooth.
Spread top of cooled cake with honey frosting. Cut cake into squares to serve.


Hazelnut Thumbprints



Mom- this one is totally for you. What an adorable variation on your already-good-thing! Recipe is here


Yup. That's ribbon sewn onto that card. How adorable is that? And I know someone who has hoards of ribbon....

2 comments:

JAG said...

Oh Amanda! You're so cute!

Vallen Family said...

Super excited that we are having Thanksgiving with you guys and now Mike and Kim! It will be so much fun! Let me know when you want to go shopping for the dinner.