Tuesday, March 22, 2011

No baby, just baby things

Baby continues to threaten an early appearance. We shall see...  In the meantime, I've been doing some sewing (and lots of sitting). I put this set together for a friend who recently had a little girl. The bib is from this pattern. I used quilting cotton for both sides and put a thin layer of batting in the middle. The burp cloth is quilting cotton on one side and toweling on the other. The finished size of the burp cloth is about 8 x 20. I just put the right sides together and left a little opening for turning. I top stitched the edge to keep it together better. The quilting cottons are by Heather Bailey. I'm super happy with how this set turned out! Might need to do a set for our little munchkin. 




Saturday, March 5, 2011

Cranberry Cake with Butter Sauce

My mother-in-law makes a wonderful cake around the holidays that is similar to this (but includes rum extract, which isn't my favorite). I've been dying to try it for a long time and finally gave it a go the other day. Honestly, the cake doesn't even matter that much if you're pouring the sauce on it. Put some coffee on. You're going to love this!


Cranberry Cake:
1 1/2 T butter
1/2 C sugar
1 egg1/4 C water
1/4 C evaporated milk
1 C GF flour mix (I used Bob's Red Mill)
1 t baking soda
1 t xantham gum1/2 t salt
1 1/4 C cranberries (fresh/frozen), chopped

1/2 C walnuts, chopped

Butter Sauce:
1/2 C butter
1 C sugar
1/2 C evaporated milk
1 t vanilla


Preheat oven to 350°. Cream butter and sugar. Add egg, milk and water. Mix in dry ingredients. Stir in cranberries and walnuts (I chopped both in the food processor). Pour mixture into greased 8 x 8 baking pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes.
Heat butter, sugar and milk in a saucepan. Bring to boil, remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Serve warm sauce over warm cake. Yum! 
You may want to eat this in solitude so you don't feel as silly licking your plate clean... and running for a second slice! 


This has been the extent of my projects for the last couple weeks. Been holding down the couch due to some pre-term excitement. Hoping baby will cooperate and bake another couple weeks.