Thanksgiving fun

We love to try new recipes, so a ‘foodie’ day like Thanksgiving is the perfect opportunity. I am sharing a recipe I created for Pumpkin Butter Cake with Cinnamon Frosting, and including a free printable of a Thanksgiving Treat Topper. Also some links to amazing turkey and fruit dip recipes.

The pièce de résistance was this gorgeous turkey! It was extrememly moist, and surprisingly didn’t taste like bacon at all (unless you ate the bacon off the top. Which we totally did. Because well, it’s BACON!!). We decorated it with fresh oregano, which is my favorite herb. Grow some — it will take your cooking to a whole new level!

Another big hit was the Pumpkin Pie Dip. [Note to self: photocopy the recipe ahead of time because you will get many requests for it!]

The food labels and these wine tags are from my Thanksgiving collection. I chose the Autumn Leaves background (there are 3 backgrounds available).

Instead of Pumpkin Pie (which is too mushy for my taste), I decided to create my own recipe for a pumpkin-pie-like cake. I am not a fan of pie crust – I know lots of people are, but it isn’t my favorite – so I used a cake mix and made it more like a cookie crust. I made them 3 ways: small Fall-shaped cupcakes (using a silicone pan), jumbo cupcakes, and a cake. All 3 varieties were yummy! Not that I tried them all.
OK maybe I did. 🙂

I topped them with leaf-shaped icing decorations from Wilton, but the undecorated ones were equally delicious. I flipped the leaf-shaped one over so you could see the crust.

I wanted to make these adorable edible acorns (made with Hershey’s Kisses, mini Nilla wafers and mini chocolate chips) but didn’t feel like just putting them into a bowl. So I made them into favors, and created a favor topper to match. The wording was inspired by the acorn contents. {You can get the treat topper printable free on my Freebies page or via the link at the end of this post}

Here is a close-up of the treat topper, in case you can’t read it in the photo. It says, “Plant seeds of Thanks & Giving… always”.

Resources:

Bacon-Blanketed, Herb-Roasted Turkey recipe from The Runaway Spoon
Autumn Leaves Food Labels from my Etsy shop
Pumpkin Pie Dip recipe from Tablespoon.com
Pumpkin bowl from Pier1 (Fall 2011 seasonal item)
Pumpkin Butter Cake with Cinnamon Frosting recipe here (adapted from Paula Deen’s ‘Gooey Pumpkin Cake’ recipe)
Thanksgiving Treat Topper printable here