Good Things by David

Pumpkins are everywhere now that it's Fall, and many of us are using them throughout our home as decor or attractive dinnerware, but have you ever made a cake in the shape of one?  Last week I decided to make my first pumpkin-shaped cake for a Halloween party as a surprise for guests, thinking it would be a piece of cake to do.  Well, it was and it wasn't. Pumpkin Shaped Cake on a Caramel Glass L.E. Smith Cake Stand The first order of business was to take out my pumpin-shaped cake mold out of storage, and get it ready for baking.  This wonderful, heavy cast-aluminum cake mold was produced exclusively for the Martha by Mail catalog many years ago, and I was fortunate to have purchased one when they were around.  I'm glad I finally decided to use it. Martha by Mail Pumpkin Cake Mold This past month I wrote a post about the mold providing all of you with the recipes and detailed instructions for making the MBM version, right from the rec...

As I'm writing this post in my kitchen, I have an amazing view of the trees around our home, most of which are changing color.  There's nothing like having the fall foliage of the east coast right outside your door, and as you can probably guess, this is definitely my favorite time of year.  If I'm lucky and have a free afternoon, I take a walk around the trails, field and areas near the house with my camera in order to capture what the landscape looks like.  Comparisons from year to year really are eye openers for us, because there are some years when it is quite disappointing to find the foliage unremarkable due to weather conditions in the weeks leading up to October. This particular season we have been very fortunate in having a superb display by mother nature.  Spring and summer give us splashes of color through the various shrubs and showy flowers, but when the fall season comes around, it's the deciduous trees which show us their natural beauty. ...

Every single Halloween it is so much fun coming up with a different set of "spooky" cookies for my niece and nephews, because I like surprising the little ones.  This year I decided to make festive, hair-raising cookies iced in colors that conjure up the spirit of Halloween.  The base cookie is a tasty, spiced sugar cookie which has brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cardamom.  It's a great cookie to eat on its own (one of my favorites), but it's even better if you decorate it with a good royal icing. Halloween Cookies The first order of business whenever I set out to make iced cookies is to go through my expanding collection of cookie cutters to see what I need.  This time around I selected some Halloween shapes that I hadn't used before and that I knew would make great, ghoulish treats.  All of these cookie cutters, with the exception of 3 small cutters, are high-quality, American-made, copper cookie cutters that are definitely going to be used f...

Like a wind that comes out of nowhere, October creeps up on us with its chilly nights and cool, foggy mornings.  "From ghoulies and ghosties, and long-legged beasties, and things that go bump in the night...", this month is all about creating that fun and spooky atmosphere of Halloween.  Visiting a pumpkin patch to buy a carload of colorful and shapely squash to carve out may be on our agendas this month, but so will baking and cooking with apples, freshly-pressed cider, cinnamon, ginger and the caramel sweetness of brown sugar.  And yet, there are costumes to pick out, candies to buy and make, and party invitations to send out.  Let's all cast a sweet spell over loved ones and create some spine-tingling magic with friends this month!

Look no further if you want to bake simple cookies for Halloween that will appeal to everyone.  Cookie baking & decorating doesn't get any easier than this.  At the baking demo I had at Williams-Sonoma just a few weeks ago, I decided to try a new approach to my cookie decorating for this spooky holiday .  It didn’t fail to catch the attention of the customers & sales associates that particular day as I was rolling out dough and cutting out cookies in Halloween shapes.  I noticed that many individuals left with the feeling of having learned something new that was easily approachable & doable. Yes, I still use some royal icing for these rolled out sugar cookies, but I make a minimum of commotion with it in order to spend less time in the kitchen.  The best thing to do is to make a superb sugar cookie dough that is easy to make, handle & bake.  Nothing is more frustrating than cutting out cookies and baking them, only to find out ...