Halloween Treats & enter to win!

We asked fans of our Facebook page and our twitter followers to vote for what they'd like from us for Halloween. They chose Halloween treats. So, we're delivering! Literally...to your doorstep! We'll choose one random winner to receive our Farmhouse batter bowl gift! All you have to do is comment about your favorite Halloween treat! * (details below)

Since we can't send treat to all of our wonderful fans, here are some of our favorite Halloween Treat ideas. Click on the photos or links for the recipes.

Pumpkin Shaped Vanilla Bundt Cake

Witch Finger Cookies

Buttercream Frosting for Spider Cake

Bake your favorite cake. We used three 8" layers. For the frosting:

- 1 cup Butter

- 1 cup Shortening (white)

- ½ tsp salt

- 1 tsp vanilla extract (clear)

- 4 cups Confectioner Sugar (sifted)

- Cream together butter and shortening. Beat until light and fluffy. Add salt and vanilla extract. Slowly add confectioner sugar until all combined. Beat frosting at high speed until fluffy.

- Frost cake with a thin layer of frosting, place in fridge and let harden (this will keep the crumbs from getting into the final frosting.

- Put aside approximately ½ cup white frosting and create ¼ cup black frosting and ¼ cup orange frosting (or your colors of choice)

- Once cake has hardened frost with approximately ½ inch of frosting. Make sure the top of the cake is smooth, sides can be somewhat rough. Tap the sides of the cake with the bottom of your spatula (or spoon) to make the distressed look.

- With the black frosting, create 4 circles on the top of the cake spaced evenly apart. Take a toothpick and starting from the center, drag the toothpick along the surface until almost the edge of the cake. Continue to do this around the cake to create spider web.

- For the spider, simply pipe out a small circle of black frosting, 8 legs and 2 little eyes. Place candy corn around the bottom of the cake to create a Halloween themed boarder.

The spider cake design & instructions are by Stephanie in our wholesale department. Aren't we lucky to have such talented employees?

* Comment on this post and tell us about your favorite Halloween treat. One lucky person will be randomly chosen to win our Farmhouse batter bowl gift! Only one entry per person. Comments close on 10/31/10 at midnight. The winning comment number will be chosen through www.random.org and announced on Monday.

Unfortunately our comment tool is displaying "-visit" instead of your signatures. You can still enter! Scroll down to the last comment and click "click here to enter." We're working with Linky tools (the list manager) to fix this problem soon! Thank you for your patience!

Harvest on the Harbor, did you enjoy it as much as we did?

I stand by my claim that Harvest on the Harbor was a foodie's idea of heaven. The hardest part for me was that I didn't have a big enough stomach! With so many wonderful choices I found myself full before I was out of foods and beverages to sample.

My first stop, of course, was to visit my co-workers and get some of the delicious bread pudding that I had been smelling all week! It seems that I wasn't the only one excited to get my hands on some. Many of you who visited our booth at Harvest on the Harbor liked it so much that you wanted the recipe. Well, as Richard promised many of you, I'm posting it.


Chocolate Bread Pudding with Bourbon Caramel Sauce

Serves 6

8 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped

4 oz. good quality white chocolate, chopped

1/2 cups whole milk

2 cup heavy cream

4 large eggs

1/2 cup plus 4 Tbsp. sugar; divided

2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1/2 tsp. salt

14 cups, 3/4” cubed French bread with crust( about 12 zo.)

2 cups SWK Dulce de Leche sauce

1/4 cup Bourbon, plus extra to taste

Whipped cream, garnish

Dusting of cocoa

Preheat oven 350. Butter (not non-stick spray) 13x9x2 baking dish. Combine bread and both chocolates in a large bowl; Toss to blend. In another bowl, using an electric mixer, beat eggs,1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp. sugar and vanilla to blend. Gradually beat in 1 1/2 cups cream and the milk. Add cream mixture to bread mixture; stir to combine. Let stand 30 minutes. Transfer bread mixture to prepared dish, spreading evenly. Drizzle the remaining 1/2 cup cream. Sprinkle with remaining 2 Tbsp sugar. Bake pudding until edges are golden and custard is set in the center, about 1 hour. Cool pudding slightly. Drizzle bread pudding with Bourbon Caramel Sauce and serve warm with whipped cream and dusting of cocoa.

Bourbon Caramel Sauce: Heat 2 cups of SWK Dulce de Leche. Add 1/4 cup (or more!) of bourbon. Mix well. Bring to simmer. Stir constantly, about 5 minutes. Remove and serve over pudding.

Patty demonstrated this recipe on the sweet stage with Zac Young of Bravo TV’s newest show, Top Chef Just Desserts. Did you know that Zac is from Maine? He is! In the style of 6 degrees of separation...Zac's 2nd cousin is my friend Abby's co-worker. Ridiculous connection, but true!

More photos from the event, like this one of me running off with an extra tray of bread pudding, are on our Cooking School's Facebook page. What happened to the rest of the extra trays? Several went to the Good Shepard Food Bank, some were saved for samples in our York store, and some were brought into the employee dining room for everyone else who was tortured with the delicious smell all week to try!

Lastly, how many jars of our Dulce de Leche dessert sauce did our cooking school use to make enough bread pudding for 4,000? 4 cases...48 jars!