Cherpeaple

 Do you know about the Turducken? Wikipedia describes it as a dish consisting of a de-boned chicken stuffed into a de-boned duck, which is in turn stuffed into a de-boned turkey. I'm not really sure what the point of that would be, I mean it's poultry stuffed poultry stuffed inside of poultry. Perhaps I've been following the Weight Watchers program so long that the idea of eating poultry doesn't sound overly exciting to me. And I suppose I could use the same argument for why the dessert version of the Turducken called the Cherpumple DID sound so exciting to me. 

Mr. ShowMe actually found it on the web back before Thanksgiving. (I usually steer clear of articles and posts on the web for food items, as they just make me hungry and almost NEVER for carrots, spinach, or brocoli!) I can't take any credit for creating this monster. Charles Phoenix is responsible for that. He describes the Cherpumple as a three-layer cake with a pie stuffed in each layer. 

To say he inspired us would be an understatement. We decided it would be a fun project for us to try at Christmas. We read through many of the successes and failures posted at his web site, watched his video carefully, gathered the ingredients and started the project wondering if we could actually pull it off. Mr. ShowMe doesn't like pumpkin pie, so we used peach in place of pumpkin, hence the name change for our version to Cherpeaple.

We decided that our cake pans weren't big enough so we purchased a spring form pan. We baked the pies two days before Christmas and on Christmas eve started in on the cakes. We baked them one at a time, and found that low temps and long times was the secret to getting them done. We actually baked each of the layers about an hour at about 275. We fiddled with the oven temp as they baked, if they seemed to be getting too "done" on the edges and still not "done" in the middle we turned it down. Eventually we had the three layers completed and decided to try to assemble the monster and transport it for an hour and half in the car was just asking for trouble, so we took it un-assembled to Mr. ShowMe's parents house on Christmas morning.

I cheated and used canned frosting.

It was a big hit!

I don't know if we'll ever make another one, but I'm glad we did it once. It was fun! 
Did you make any extravagant dishes over Christmas?

I'd love to hear about them, if you did.

Thanks for stopping by :)

Christmas Sleighs

I've been blog absent for a long time. Between working 60-70 hours a week and getting ready for Christmas, it hasn't left much time for anything else. Even though I haven't been able to post anything, I haven't completely forgotten about my blog. I've been taking pictures and have lots of blog posts to put up. I wanted to get this one up, in case it might inspire some of you to do something similar while you still have time. I made something like these years ago, but this time I decided to challenge myself to see if I could do it on the cheap with all of my components coming from thrift and dollar stores. 

I completed the challenge by creating two fun and festive center pieces at a fraction of the cost from my previous versions.

I started in early November watching the thrift stores for just the right sleigh basket. The ones I made in the past were wicker. I found this wire one at a Goodwill and paid a little more than I wanted, $3, but I had been looking for sometime and it was the right size at 15" long and in good condition, so I went ahead and bought it. I found a smaller wicker and metal version at a much better price since it was in my Mother-in-Law's basement making it free. (Yay Free!!)

While I was watching the thrift stores for sleigh baskets, I was buying up festive bobbles, picks, sprigs and candles. I actually found one big bag of misc stuff for $1.40 at one shop.

At another I found a bag with two short pillars and a nutcracker candle still wrapped in cellophane, never used, for $2.00.

I hit the Dollar Tree for the clear plastic bowl that I needed for the wire sleigh and a bag of Potpourri so they would smell AND look pretty.

With all of the components finally gathered I spread them all out on my work surface and started putting them together. I started with the wire one, since it was bigger. I knew I wanted the silk flowers standing up in the back, so I cut a piece of the floral foam that I had to the right size and wrapped it in aluminum foil since it would show through the sides. With the poinsettias inserted in the back piece of foam I added the bowl to the body of the sleigh, wrapped another piece of foam in foil and inserted cinnamon sticks at the four corners. I poured the potpourri into the bowl around the block of foam and placed one of the pillar candles on top of that foam piece.

Then I filled it in with some of the little sprigs and sprays that came from that mixed bag that I bought at the one thrift store. I added straight pins and secured them into the foam under the candle where I needed.

Of course the candles not for burning, but it adds a pretty festive touch, don't you think?

For the smaller sleigh I decided my nutcracker candle should be the driver so I positioned the remaining piece of floral foam in the basket, carved out a small section for him to rest in and set pins around the parameter to so he wouldn't topple out too easy. I poured the rest of the potpourri around the foam and added more sprigs and sprays to fill in. I decided it needed some height so I added the golden berries at the back.
 

I have about $5.00 cost in each which is pretty cheap for large, floral, fragrant centerpieces. They were really fun to do and came together really fast. And I must admit, the best part was in the hunt for all the pieces in the thrift stores! I'll have to keep my eyes open for another sleigh. I think I have enough of the decorative bits for one more. Potpourri and flower foam is easy enough to come by if I find the right vessel to make one more.

Thanks for stopping by!

I'm linking up at Debbiedoo's  , Home Stories AtoZ and other fun parties listed on my Link Party page. See you there!

Had To Share This

Received this via email. It was too good to not share, so I wanted to take a quick minute to post it. Hope you're all having the merriest of Christmas' :)

Christmas Wishes

I probably won't be online tomorrow, so let me take the time now to tell you that I hope you all have the loveliest Christmas ever!

Christmas Lights Abound!

Mr. ShowMe and I like to drive around the area and look at Christmas displays this time of year. I thought I'd share some of them with you.

 

 

I hope you're having a great holiday. Merry Christmas Eve :)
Thanks for stopping by!