Jo Boroff saved a year’s worth of Southern Living Magazines for me, so what better than to thumb through the December issue looking for Christmas ideas? Since Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, I’m planning to experiment with Southern Living‘s red velvet cake recipes–lovers’ delights that can be tested in February and be gifts or desserts in December.
The red velvet madeline tree looks incredible. Southern Living offers an instructional video, which took away some of the excitement for me because I imagine pinning the cakes to the styrofoam tree with toothpicks may be a lot more difficult than it appears. The consistency of the cakes would make the difference. Here’s the recipe. Here’s the link to the video. I’m concerned that alone on the table, the tree might not be as appealing. Red and white accessories, are a must.
In the lower left of the photo, there are red velvet peppermint brownies. The advantage of this recipe is that it uses peppermint extract–no searching for candy canes at this late date–and the resulting brownies are more portable and can be cut into smaller shapes for gifting.
I’ve been invited to a gathering next week, so I’ll be testing some of these winter recipes. I’ll let you know the results.
Also, I am going to attempt my first use of fondant by making accent snowflakes. What I need is a set of cookie cutters in snowflake shapes and can be used mixed and matched like the RM Snowflake cookie cutter set. Does anyone have experience with these?
P.S. Don’t forget that tomorrow the Superbowl will be old news–and purple gear will be on mega sale. On Saturday, I noticed that about 10 racks at Kohl’s had Ravens gear which will be on super sale soon. Sale purchases in the next few days will make terrific gifts in 11 months!
The Yule Log 365 