Fall Decor, Handmade Ornament, and Handmade Gift Tutorials, plus Free Printables

Now that fall is officially here, 'tis the season to start thinking about decorating your home for the holidays and making those holiday gifts. For a little inspiration to get you started, here's a fantastic collection of fall and halloween decor, Christmas ornaments, and simple handmade gift tutorials, along with a list of DIY free printables from Everything Etsy (via Leo on the Loose).

101 Festive Fall Tutorials
101 Handmade Ornament Tutorials
101 Simple Handmade Gift Tutorials
101 Free Pretty Printables

BAKED Sunday Morning: Honey Corn Muffins

I have been making cornbread in these cast iron pans for as long as I can remember.

As I mentioned in another post, I was my mom's little sous chef and as soon as she thought I could handle stirring the egg and milk into the Jiffy Cornbread mix and lift these into the oven, it became one of my tasks in the kitchen. We ate quite a bit of cornbread when I was growing up because they always had to make an appearance when chili was made and my mom was always cooking up a pot of beans during the winter months, so cornbread was the perfect accompaniment. I was thrilled that mom gave her Wagner cornbread pans to me when she and dad moved to Florida.

When I read that that corn muffins began for Renato with a box of Jiffy corn bread mix in the intro to this recipe from BAKED Exploratons, it made me smile and think that this was probably a shared experience for so many of us growing up in the U.S. But I was skeptical that his recipe would be as good and as easy as Jiffy's.

The recipe calls for honey which is different from Jiffy's. I used a different flavor of honey than the one I used in Dorie's Honey-Spiced Madelaines. We get this honey at the beekeeping store, but it is local honey that is not any 'one' flavor because the bees have pollinated every flower within a 5 mile radius of their hive, so no clear, strong flavor stands out. It is a beautiful, mellow honey that goes with anything and the store has the honey in a large vat so customers can take their own jars and fill them up. I thought this honey would be a good one for the muffins since I wasn't used to having honey in my cornbread.

We really loved the texture of these corn sticks. The cornmeal gave them a nice crunch and the honey gave them a sweetness where butter was not really necessary after they came out of the oven, but I put some butter on mine out of habit more than anything.

These were so moist, yet crunchy, and with the honey had a hint of sweetness that was perfect with our morning coffee. I halved the recipe in the book and it made enough for 10 cornbread sticks.

French Friday with Dorie: Honey-Spiced Madeleines

Fall may have arrived, but our triple digits say that we are still firmly in summer. I am dreaming of crisp fall mornings, warm cozy fires, hot apple cider and pumpkin pie. This week's French Friday with Dorie is a perfect transition recipe in that it has the spices of fall, but also the summer flavors of honey and orange. 

I used local Raspberry Honey in my madeleines which gave them even more of the taste of summer.  These were so easy and fun to make that I can't believe that it was my first time making them. For some reason, I was under the impression these would be difficult, but I was happily surprised that it was not the case at all.

They were perfect with a cup of tea outside on the patio when the cool delta breeze had kicked in later that evening. The taste of ginger, cinnamon, and cloves, along with the raspberry honey and orange zest, were summer and fall rolled up together in one delicious bite. The madeleines were a hit with everyone and disappeared very fast. I'm so glad that French Fridays with Dorie got me to finally take my madeleine pans out and use them.

I bought my madeleine pans last summer at a garage sale and had them stored away. The large individual madeleine pans were still sealed in their original packaging. It wasn't until after I washed them and put them back in the bag that I noticed that the packaging didn't say 'madeleine' pans, but 'madelaine' pans. How funny is that?! Needless to say, madeleines will from now on be called madelaines in our home. :)

Please visit the links to see the lovely madelaines that fellow French Fridays with Dorie members made this week. You can find this recipe on pages 408-09 in Around My French Table, but you can also find it online here. 

French Friday with Dorie: Cinnamon-Crunch Chicken

Was I the only one who had a problem finding the cookies for this week's recipe? After going to five stores, and ready to give up and think of a good substitution, I finally found the Cinnamon Sugar Spice cookies. All that time and gas to use just two cookies...Crazy, huh?!

One thing's for sure, since joining French Fridays with Dorie, I have gotten to know the grocery stores and markets in my area. Some weeks I spend more time hunting down ingredients than I do fixing the recipe. I still had to make one substitution for an ingredient, however, and that was because I forgot that the recipe called for crème fraîche and since it takes about two days to make it, I used mexican crema instead.

This dish doesn't require a lot of ingredients and once you have them all it is a perfect one to fix for a week night meal as it doesn't take more than 10 minutes to put on the table. The cookies are roughly cut with a serrated knife and mixed with the cream. You then slice the chicken breasts in strips and cook in oil or butter. I cooked mine in a little oil. You add the cream mixture and cook until the chicken is coated, season with salt and pepper. And that's it.

I served my chicken on a butter lettuce leaf and ate it like a wrap. I took Dorie's suggestion and made her Lemon-Steamed Spinach and I also had some leftover pasta as side dishes.

The chicken was good - not much of a crunch from the cookies after cooking them - but the cookie coating gave a nice sweet flavor and texture to the chicken. Visit French Fridays with Dorie to see what the rest of the group did. You can find this recipe on page 220 of Around My French Table.

Get Inspired for Fall

The fall issue of Sweet Paul's online magazine is out.

His seasonal magazines are such a treat. You can view his fall issue here.

We Bake to Remember: Caramel Apple Cake

When I was thinking about making the Caramel Apple Cake for this week's BAKED Sunday Mornings post, I knew that I wanted to incorporate the remembrance of 9/11, so when I read over at Cakelaw's blog, Laws of the Kitchen, that Marla Meredith from Family Fresh Cooking created a We Bake to Remember post, I wanted to participate.

I made the applesauce for the cake last night and everything seemed to be going well. It was the first time I have ever made homemade apple sauce and it tasted so good. And the smell! The apples cooking in cinnamon and brown sugar on the stove is a perfect aroma to put you in the mood for fall.

I didn't make the cake until this morning and as it is with cakes that I really want to turn out, everything seemed to go wrong. I decided to make a two layer cake instead of a 3 layer that the recipe calls for, so I halved the recipe and made the layers in two 8-inch pans. So far so good. Then I made the caramel and that turned out pretty good. But when I went to take my cake layers out of the pan, one of the layers fell apart. Probably because I didn't let them cool enough because I was in a rush this morning.

I next made the buttercream frosting and what a disappointment. I have not mastered the type of frosting you cook first. I definitely need more practice. I chilled the frosting in the refrigerator for awhile to firm a little and then spread the frosting on the unbroken layer and put a dollop of frosting on some of the broken pieces of cake and drizzled with the caramel.

John, of course, loves it plain and this time I have to agree with him. It was just too sweet with the frosting and caramel - even for me. I do want to try making this cake again and definitely try the caramel buttercream frosting again. It tastes really good, but just didn't have the consistency of light, fluffy frosting.

The BAKED Sunday Mornings link for the Caramel Apple Cake is not up, but I hope you'll visit the We Bake to Remember post and see what bakers made in remembrance of 9/11.

It's so hard to believe that ten years have passed. We will never, ever forget.