Buttermilk Cranberry Breakfast Cake

I made this yummy breakfast cake for our Fab 5 holiday brunch - It was a recipe I found on Pinterest and it worked out perfectly.

Here's the much requested recipe:

Buttermilk Cranberry Breakfast Cake

1/2 c. butter (softened)

1 c. sugar

zest of 1 orange

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour (add an additional 1/4 c if you're at high altitude)

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/2 c. buttermilk

2 c. cranberries (coated in 1 tbsp flour)

Pre-heat oven to 350

Cream butter, sugar, and orange zest until fluffy

Add egg and vanilla

Coat cranberries with 1 tbsp of flour (this keeps the berries from bursting and running when you bake the cake

Sift flour, baking soda and salt

Add flour mixture to the butter and sugar mixture alternating with buttermilk {I think it's best to end with flour}

Fold in the cranberries

Spray a 9x9 pan with cooking spray

Bake for 35-40 minutes.  

*Mine took about 45 minutes and I covered with aluminum foil when the top was as brown as I wanted but the cake wasn't done.

Enjoy!

(adapted from this recipe)

Christmas Card Wreath

I have been wanting to make something to hold all the cute holiday cards I get from my friends.  I found this idea on Pinterest

It's a cute wreath made of clothespins - this one also used ribbon between the pins.  This is one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to Pintrest - when you clicked on the link, it only led to this image - no how-to blog post or anything!  I decided that I could figure it out on my own so here goes!

Here's what you'll need for this project:

Wire wreath frame (I used at 12 inch which is the smallest of the frames they had at Michaels)
Clothespins - mine came from Walmart - $2 for 100 - I used 60 on my 12 inch frame
Scrapbook paper
Glue - I used ModgePodge

I'd get everything together first - it really takes no time if you get organized first!  I figured out how many clothespins would fit in each section of the wreath and then did some math (multiplication) to figure out how many total I would need.  Turns out you use 10 pins in every section of the 12 inch wreath - so I chose 10 pieces of scrapbook paper and made 6 pins of each type of paper to get 60 pins.

Take the scrapbook paper and cut out a section that would fit the number of pins you need.

Spread the glue on the paper, and firmly press in the clothes pins - let it dry.  I did all the gluing, and let the pins dry while I cleaned my kitchen :)

Cut out the clothes pins so that the paper is only covering the clothes pin with a slight overlap - you don't want to leave too much paper it will leave a slightly messy look on your finished product.  I decided to do the pins in different directions when I glued them on the paper so I got a variation of the pattern on the paper, it worked out cute!

The wreath frame has 4 circles - to get the look that I decided on you alternate every other pin.  Each pin starts from between the 2nd and 3rd circles - pins on the inside go on the inner two circles and the outside pins go on the outer two circles.

The ends will stick up making a zig-zag look.

I used the same order of pins around the whole wreath and I like the mismatched order of it all!

Then you simply tie a ribbon onto the back of the wreath and hang!

I can't wait until the wreath is full of cards of my cute friends and their kids!

Happy Holidays!