Thanksgiving Cornucopia
Posted by: Kristen Swain · Edit
Good morning! Kristen here with my Thursday post, today I am sharing with you a tutorial on making a lovely Thanksgiving Cornucopia for your holiday table. Not only is this decoration beautiful, but it’s edible too! And DELICIOUS!!
This lovely fruit filled cornucopia is made with Pie Crust! And I used my new Mini Cake Machine to make it.
Here is how you make it.
First, using aluminum foil, make a form to wrap your dough around. Spray the form and your pan generously with cooking spray.
I would suggest not making a super hard solid form, just one strong enough to hold the shape. And if possible, leave the wide end hollow or only cover over top until the dough is fully baked and cool, then remove most of the insides. Just to make it pretty and to hold more fruit.
I used premade pie crust, you can make your own if you prefer. I wrapped the dough around the form, filling in with pieces where I needed. You don’t have to be completely smooth with this, since we’ll be covering up most of that dough.
Now for the cutting part. I first took out a single crust and cut it in half. Then I used one half on my 6×12 cake cutting mat. I needed no shortening for the dough to stick. The dough only measured about 4 inches so I used my fondant rolling pin and rolled the dough thinner on the mat, until it reached the whole 6 inches. I trimmed off the excess with a butter knife. Make sure you trim along the edges, or the rollers that direct the mat in the Cake Machine will get gummed up with dough.
Now insert your cutting mat into the Mini Cake Machine.
I then cut out leaf stems for my cornucopia base. I used Martha Stewart Crafts All Occasions Cake Art cartridge with the
You can get several stems from the sheet. I then remove the excess dough and cut out parts.
You can use a bit of water, milk or egg wash to attach your dough pieces to the Cornucopia dough. All you need is a clean brush. I used a brand new brush for mine. I find that the Cricut spatula is a necessity , it helps get the dough up off the cutting mat without squishing anything. At this point, I cover the top of the cutout with milk, and the underneath is actually what we see when I placed them on the surface. This works well as long as you are consistent. You wouldn’t want to do this with layers unless you have every piece turn over.
Here you can see, I wrapped the stems around the cornucopia base.
I used about 7 – 8 cut stems, some of the spaces were too small to fit a whole stem, so I cut them into smaller pieces and added them into spots. I also rolled out a rope and made that the edge of my cornucopia.
I cut out
I also cut out
I layered on the flowers and leaves, then added dough balls for the centers of my flowers.
At this point, you could egg wash the dough, sprinkle on some crystal sugar and bake it into a beautiful elegant decoration.
However…..
I wanted to show you how you could make it into a beautiful and colorful decoration.
You will need, gel food colors, here is my collection, these were only about $1.50 each at my cake supply store. You need some water or milk to thin the colors down, a clean paintbrush, and some crystal sugar to top the dough with.
If you do decide you want to paint your dough, I would suggest painting the leaf stems before you add the flowers and leaves, as I had to pull some of the edges up to get to some parts of the leaf stems.
Again, you may stop at any time in your painting so long as you like what you have.
At this point, you can generously sprinkle on your sugar.
TIP! – ok- to be honest with you- this was my first attempt at making my cornucopia. And HONESTLY- when had let it bake about 10 minutes. I checked it only to see that it had broken and the sides fell down. I was heartbroken. BUT I made a second cornucopia and that time this is what I did. I did the same thing up to this point. ( that is why my photos of the process and finished item are a little different)
THEN- I poked toothpicks in all around the crust to hold it to the foil. Then I froze the crust for about an hour. Before I baked it in a 425 degree oven, I covered it again with foil wrapping it snugly around the crust, just to make sure the dough wouldn’t slide off.
It worked! The second Cornucopia baked perfectly. I decorated the inside with apples, grapes, and some salad greens. The sugar on the dough makes for a tasty treat, though your friends and family may decline on nibbling for fear of ruining such a work of art.
Cricut Mini Cake Machine
Cake Basics Cartridge
Martha Stewart Crafts All Occasions Cake Art Cartridge
Pie Crust- I used about 3-4 for this project.
Egg wash/milk/water ( any of these)
Crystal Sugar- I used Wilton brand
Gel Food Coloring
Brush
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