Styling a holiday turkey platter can get mundane. Even a turkey doesn’t want to wear the same look every holiday season. Here are a few of my favorite color inspired looks for this years turkey presentation. All are fun and fast and fresh! Look 1: Persimmons Parsley and Sage. Choosing a stand alone beautiful fruit like persimmons makes your work easy.
Look 2: Kale and Pears. I love this simple green approach. The key is picking small pears and always…always cutting at least one open! Look 3: Cranberries and Kale. Who says a turkey doesn’t need a necklace! I strung cranberries for a necklace and draped it over the bird. Filled the cavity with a pretty leaf kale (because it will hold up) and then filled the cavity with loose cranberries. So fun! Look 4: Eggs and Rosemary. I love this hard boiled egg crown and one fun egg out of the cavity!! You could even circle the turkey with eggs, but that may be overkill.
By Libbie Summers
Assisted by Candace Brower and David Dempsey
Photography by Cedric Smith
I love a natural cake topper, especially when it “may” give a nod to the flavor of the cake AND can be a fun conversation starter AND add drama AND be affordable! Here are five Grocery Store Cake Toppers that will make any novice cake decorator an avant garde genius!
Banana
Coconut
Butter Lettuce (no this isn’t a butter lettuce cake…it’s a lime cake, but I loved the drama of the butter lettuce better)
Raspberry (sometimes a single beautiful berry is all you need)
Blueberry (okay, a vintage milk glass rabbit filled with blueberries doesn’t hurt either)
Line them all up on a party dessert table for a big WOW factor.
By Libbie Summers
Photography by Cedric Smith Assisted by Candace Brower
Easy to make.
Gorgeous when baked.
Loaded with citrus and love. Buttermilk Citrus Bundt Cake serves 12
Ingredients:
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, plus more for greasing, at room temperature
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
Zest and juice from one lemon, divided
Zest and juice from one small orange, divided
5 tablespoons lemon juice, divided
4 large eggs, room temperature
1 to 1 ½ cups confectioner’s sugar (for glaze)
Directions: •Preheat the oven to 350°F. Generously grease and flour a (9-inch) Bundt pan and set aside.
•In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
•In a small bowl, stir together the buttermilk, lemon zest, orange zest, 2 tablespoons lemon juice and 2 tablespoons orange juice and set aside.
•In a standing mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, add the butter and sugar. Beat on medium speed until the mixture is smooth and light in texture (about 5
minutes). Add the eggs to the butter-sugar mixture, one at a time, beating well and scraping down the bowl after each addition. In 3 additions, alternate adding the
sifted dry ingredients and the buttermilk ingredients to the butter-sugar mixture, stirring on low JUST until incorporated.
Pour the batter into the prepared Bundt and bake until the center of cake springs back when touched and a skewer inserted near the center comes out clean (about
60 to 75 minutes).
•Remove the cake from the oven and let cool completely in the pan on a wire rack. Release the sides and bottom of the cake from the pan with a narrow metal
spatula or knife. Invert the pan and turn out the cake. Place a wire rack in a baking pan and set the cake, right side up, on the rack.
•For glaze, mix the confectioner’s in a small bowl with just enough of the remaining lemon and orange juice to make a pourable frosting.
•Once the cake has cooled, pour the glaze over the cake and allow to firm up before cutting.
•For a beautiful decoration, I like to fill the center of the cake with fresh citrus and citrus leaves like kumquats or satsumas.
Take a peek behind the lens in this 15 second video of getting this shot.
By Libbie Summers
Assisted by Candace Brower
Photography: Cedric Smith
A peek behind the lens and four easy steps to take bundt to beautiful.
1. Start with a delicious recipe.
2. Use a showy bundt pan and cake stand.
3. Frost or glaze a COOLED cake. (I like to spoon it over the cake in a zig zag pattern letting it run down the edges.)
4. ALWAYS fill the hole…always. (Try using flavor cues from the cake, this is a citrus cake so I used just picked clementines with the leaves still intact.)
