🔔Poinsetta Cookies Recipe to #SpreadCheer
Bake up something delicious in no time with some help from Betty Crocker! I love to surprise my friends with cookies to #SpreadCheer during the holiday season.
I love baking with Betty Crocker™ cookies mixes because they […]
🛷Jolly Freebies Inside: 🔎Free Mystery eBook: Love & Murder in Savannah 🛷Free Christmas Printable: Sleigh Rides Sign 🔤Free Christmas Printable: Vintage Christmas ABC from A Christmas Treasury
Get your free printable vintage Christmas ABC art thanks to Dover. I thought this would be a good printable for card making and it includes all the letter of the alphabet A to Z with a Christmas theme and illustrations for each letter. There are six pages you can print, just […]
🔎Free Mystery eBook: Love & Murder in Savannah ($5.99 value)
🛷Free Christmas Printable: Sleigh Rides Sign
Get your free printable sign Sleigh Rides and Hot Cocoa thanks to Clean & Scentsable. Look for the pink “Download the 8×10 Here” text link to instantly access the JPG file to download and print. Print on cardstock or add to an empty frame to create an affordable and festive sign for your home.
🎅Santa’s Hat Lasagna & more festive recipes
Are you ready for the holidays and feeding last-minute guests? I’m planning ahead by stocking my freezer with family-friendly foods like lasagna that I can make in a hurry (without a last-minute trip to the grocery store). The key […]
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🎁Christmas Punch Recipe
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of AMP AGENCY. The opinions and text are all mine.
Here’s my recipe for Christmas Punch using Canada Dry® Ginger Ale. I was proud of myself for creating a new way to garnish the Christmas Punch by using fresh cranberries and fresh mint leaves to create a Holly Garnish on top of an orange slice.
Christmas Punch Recipe
Ingredients:
1 2-liter of Canada Dry® Ginger Ale
1 can of frozen Orange Juice
1 can of frozen Apple Cherry Juice
fresh mint leaves (for garnish)
fresh cranberries (for garnish)
orange (for garnish)
Directions:
- Combine Canada Dry® Ginger Ale, frozen Orange Juice and frozen Apple Cherry Juice in a punch bowl
- Mix punch until frozen juice has melted completely
- Add thin slices of orange as garnish
- On top of the orange slices, add two fresh mint leaves and three fresh cranberry halves to form your Holly Garnish
Enjoy sipping your Christmas Punch!
My kids were impressed with the fruity flavor of this Christmas Punch and my husband thought that the Apple Cherry juice added a really nice flavor to it. Now I don’t own a punch bowl, so I used a clear glass trifle bowl which was almost as large as a punch bowl. The rest of the punch went into a glass pitcher that fits nicely in my refrigerator. The advantage to using the trifle bowl as a punch bowl is that I was able to put this adorable Santa Mini-Tree Skirt around it as a decoration (best seen in my top photo).
Punch is such a fun beverage to make because you can get really creative with what you mix together. I love the flavor and sparkle that Canada Dry® Ginger Ale adds to it. Because punch is best served with lots of ice to keep it cool during your festivities, you want to be careful not to dilute it too much. My rule of thumb when making punch is to use my Canada Dry® Ginger Ale as my water for my frozen juices. So I’m not adding any water to my punch (besides the melting ice cubes). This gives the punch just the right strength so that it’s delicious to drink immediately after mixing or after a few hours on ice.
I’m letting my kids help me pick out a new holiday movie to watch with your $5.00 VUDU credit from this deal. Watching movies during the holidays is my favorite way to relax and enjoy time off from our busy schedules with my family. Do you have any holiday movie recommendations for us?
Which beverages do you enjoy for the holidays? Post a comment and tell me!
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of AMP AGENCY. The opinions and text are all mine. please read my Disclosure Policy.
🕯️Pomegranate Rosemary Butter Cake Recipe
I love holiday baking using bundt pans, so I used my Holiday Wreath pan to inspire me to create a fragrant Pomegranate Rosemary Butter Cake decorated with a red ribbon, green holly, and pinecones. I picked up Land O’ Lakes butter at Walmart to make the best-tasting butter cake I’ve ever made. It’s also the best-looking butter cake I’ve ever made. My kids were so impressed with my cake decorating that they thought I had purchased the cake already decorated. They’re used to my quick decorating method – a few shakes of powdered sugar. It works when you are short on time, but I’m glad I invested the time in decorating this cake because the results are something to celebrate. Next time I make this cake, I’ll refer to my photo to help the decorating process go a little faster! Pin my recipe for inspiration for your next bundt cake!
My mom taught me that choosing the brand and type of butter you use for baking is important because it has a big impact on the final taste. I usually use Land O’ Lakes Butter in my baking because I know I’ll achieve the best taste with it. I love that they use a “Flavor Protect Wrapper” that protects the butter from anything else in your fridge (i.e. you don’t want your butter absorbing onion or garlic flavors).
When baking a bundt cake it’s important to bake it long enough so that the cake batter is completely cooked in the middle of the cake. There’s nothing worse then a gooey cake middle! I baked my butter cake on the middle rack at 375 degrees for 50 minutes. You want the top of the cake to be golden brown and you can test if it’s done by sticking a toothpick into the thickest looking area of the cake. Let your cake cool before placing a serving platter on top of the cake – carefully flip both the serving platter and the bundt pan over and the cake should easily release from the bundt pan onto the serving platter.
Pomegranate Rosemary Butter Cake – Pin It or Print It
When decorating a bundt cake made from a decorative pan, it helps to look at the pan while you’re decorating. Sometimes details you may want to highlight will “disappear” on the cake after baking due to air pockets or an uneven release from the pan. You can easily bring them out using frosting – but you have to be able to see them first! I used fresh cranberries as the red holly berries and in the middle of the cake because they’re so pretty. The pinecones became the yummiest part of the decorations. That’s because I used chocolate fudge frosting as the base. Combine the chocolate flavor with a thin slivered almond crunch on top of a fragrant dense rosemary-infused cake and my tastebuds were doing a happy dance! I hope you love this cake as much as I do!
- 1¼ cups Land O' Lakes Unsalted Butter (softened to room temperature)
- 1½ cups sugar
- 4½ cups sifted unbleached all-purpose flour
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 3 eggs
- 3 tsp vanilla extract
- 1¼ cups milk
- ½ cup pomegranate juice
- ½ cup pomegranate arils
- 2 tsp crushed rosemary
- pinch of salt
- frosting for decorating (red for ribbon, green for holly, chocolate for pinecones)
- slivered almonds (for pinecones)
- fresh cranberries (for holly berries and center)
- fresh rosemary (as a garnish)
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees with a rack positioned in the middle of the oven.
- Prepare a 9-cup bundt cake pan by throughly coating inside with non-stick baking spray with flour.
- In a large bowl, combine sugar and softened butter with an electric mixer until creamy.
- In a separate small bowl, combine eggs and vanilla. Add to large bowl of sugar mixture and mix thoroughly.
- In a separate large bowl, combine sifted flour, baking powder, crushed rosemary, and a pinch of salt.
- In a measuring cup with a pour spout, combine the milk and pomegranate juice to make a milk mixture.
- Alternate adding a small amount of flour mixture them a small amount of milk mixture into the large bowl of sugar mixture and keep mixing with the electric mixer.
- Lastly gently fold in the pomegranate arils with a large spoon.
- Pour cake batter into bundt pan and level the batter out so every part of the pan is filled evenly.
- Bake for 50 minutes, Test with a toothpick for doneness and adjust baking time as needed for your oven.
- Cool cake in the bundt pan for at least 30 minutes (drape a tea towel over it), then place a serving platter on the top and flip the bundt pan over to carefully release the cake onto the serving platter.
- Let cool thoroughly before decorating with icing. Alternatively you can decorate by sprinkling with powdered sugar.
- Tip for creating Pinecones with Slivered Almonds: use chocolate frosting in dots for slivered almonds to stick to. Start at the bottom of the pinecone (closest to the serving platter) and work your way up to the top of the cake. The slivered almonds look best pointing downward. Even if the pinecone is shown facing upward in the bundt pan mold - reorient all pinecones so they face down (see photo).
If you’re baking for your family, or giving the gift of homemade goodies – visit the Land O’ Lakes Holiday Recipes for inspiration. You’re going to bake up something beautiful with Land O’ Lakes Butter!
This post is sponsored by Collective Bias® and I received compensation for it. My opinions are my own and they are not edited by Collective Bias®. Please visit my Disclosure Policy.
Recipe originally published on Nov 24, 2013
