CranHoney White Chocolates

Have you ever made your own chocolates? Tried it with a little honey inside? Well...if you haven't, I really really think you should. It's a lot easier than it seems. Go to a local craft store and get a chocolate mold. I chose a square mold for these.  There should also be some Melts there, which is the chocolate used for making...chocolate. :-) I picked out the white chocolate to go with the Cranberry honey.

What you'll need:
Mold
Chocolate
Kid Paint Brush (new, not used) or a brush specifically for food.
CranHoney

First step: clean the mold and dry it. Using a double boiler, heat up the chocolate as the directions on the back of the package say. 

Second step: When the chocolate has fully melted, take the paint brush and slightly brush some of the chocolate in the mold. Make sure to brush a thin layer all around the individual mold leaving space in the middle open. Stick it in the freezer for about 45 seconds. Pull it out.

Third step: When the mold is out of the freezer, squeeze in a bit of CranHoney, just fill it right before it gets to the top of the mold.

Fourth step: Take a spoon and put more chooclate on the top of the honey. Make sure the honey is covered in the chocolate. Don't mix the honey and the newly added chocolate. This process should be done quickly so that the chocolate does not fall into the honey. Stick it back into the freezer for about 2 minutes.

Fifth step: Take out of the freezer and turn over the mold on a napkin or plate. If you want to make a fun design on the top, use the extra chocolate and dye it to whatever color you would like.

Mhmmmmm....Enjoy! :-)


Sarah

St. Patricks Day Cookies | PassionHoney Buttercream Frosting

A friend of mine absolutely loves to make cookies and collect cookie cutters. I text her the other day asking her if she had any St. Patricks Day cookie cutters....Yep. So she made these amazing sugar cookies and brought them to me so we could frost them. This recipe is slighty adapted from Tasty Kitchen's frosting recipe.

Make your favorite sugar cookie recipe and then follow these instructions for the buttercream frosting.

What you need:

½ cups Unsalted Butter, At Room Temperature

4 Tablespoons PassionHoney

2 cups Powdered Sugar

1 Tablespoon Heavy Cream

 Green Coloring

How you do it:

In a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, cream together butter and honey for 2 minutes.

Add 1 cup of the powdered sugar. Begin with mixer on low speed until sugar is incorporated, then increase speed to medium and beat until smooth and creamy, about 3-5 minutes.

Add another cup of powdered sugar, again mixing on low speed to incorporate.

Add heavy cream at low speed. Mix on medium speed about 2 minutes until mixture is smooth. Put in a few drops of coloring to get the desired green color you want. Add more, if you want it darker.

You may need to add additional powdered sugar as needed for desired consistency.


Hope you enjoy!

Sarah

Fall | CranHoney Apple Chips

I was flipping through a magazine (Autumn Cottage) and noticed that they had a section of apple recipes.I love apples. They are so crunchy and sweet! Probably one of the best snacks ever! :-)  One of the recipes was for apple chips....here it is with the little tangy taste of CranHoney.

CranHoney Apple Chips

What you need:
2 cups of sugar
1 cup water
1/4 cup of CranHoney
1/4 cup plus 4 Tablespoons lemon juice
3 Apples (Your choice, I chose Gala)

How you do it:

1. Preheat oven to 200*. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.

2. In a large pan over medium-high heat, combine sugar, water, CranHoney, and 1/4 cup of lemon juice. Bring mixture to a boil, and cook until sugar is dissolved. Remove pan from heat, and cool mixture to room temperature.

3. Fill a large bowl with cool water and add the extra lemon juice to it.

4. Cut the apples crosswise with a manual V-slicer. They should end up being about 1/16 inch thick. Put the sliced apples in the lemon water mixture.

5. Take the apples out of the water. Dry the apples with a towel. Dip the apple slices in the cooled honey mixture. Let sit on a pan for 10 minutes. Put them in the oven and bake for 1 hour , or until they are dry. Turn off oven and leave apples in the oven for an additional hour.

6. Carefully remove the apples and store up to 1 week.

Hope you enjoy!

Sarah

Recipe adapted from Autumn Cottage Magazine

Fall | Mandy's Chili

Here in Oregon we have a lot of rainy cold days and when those days come we all want something hot to eat. My friend Mandy came up with this chili recipe that uses our PlumHoney! Give it a try and let us know what you think!

What you need:

• 1lb of ground beef
• Garlic powder
• Salt and pepper
• 3 cans diced tomatoes
• 2 cans stewed tomatoes
• 2 cans red kidney beans (RINSE!)
• 1 package of chili seasoning
• ½ bottle of plum honey

How you do it:

1. Cook beef all the way through. Sprinkle with garlic powder, salt and pepper while cooking.

2. Combine the rest of ingredients in a slow cooker. Make sure to rinse the kidney beans. Add meat when after it has browned.

3.Cook on low for 6-8 hours or high for 4-6 hours in slow cooker, stirring occasionally.

4.Serve with sides (chopped onion, cheese, sour cream, and tortilla chips).

Sarah

Harvest Time | Grandma's Plum Cake

Wow! The season of harvesting plums is coming to a close. Yesterday I had the opportunity to make this plum cake with my grandma! It was fun to hear about how this recipe started with her mom (my great-grandma). My grandma handed me a stack of recipes and information about plums to look over when I got home. I found a short paragraph on how plums/prunes came to Oregon:

"The first plum tree sprouts came to Oregon by wagon train in 1847. By 1853, the first Oregon-grown Italian prunes were sold in Portland.*" Wow! I am flat out amazed at that history. Our farm was homesteaded in 1884 which was not long after the tree sprouts came here!

What you need:
1 1/3 cup mixed bisquick
1 cup milk
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons of Cinnamon
1/2 cup PlumHoney
1/4 cup of condensed milk

How you do it:

1. Wash 2 lbs of Plums

2. Slice in half and remove pits

3. Spread bisquick in the bottom of the pan

4. Place the halved plums in the pan on their side until the pan is full.

5. Sprinkle on the cinnamon.

 6. Spread on the brown sugar.

7. Pour 1/4 of the PlumHoney on the pan mixture.  After this, spread on 1/4 cup of dried bisquick over the brown sugar.

8. Pour on the condensed milk. Pour the rest of PlumHoney on the mixture. Bake in the oven about 45 minutes or until golden brown.

 9. Eat with icecream of just by itself! :-)

I hope you enjoy this recipe! And thank you Grandma for sharing this recipe with me! I am very glad to know how to make this amazing Plum Cake that has been passed on through the generations!

At the Dahlia Festival with my Grandma!

Sarah


*came from the Oregon Prunes are Plum Good article by the Oregon Processed Prune and Plum Growers Association.

PassionHoney Chicken Salad

Liz came up with this recipe last week! We absolutely loved the tropical taste of PassionHoney blended into this salad. It's super easy to make, which is really nice when you have absolutely no time to think about how to make something. :-)

What you need:

4 cups cooked chicken, diced.
3 celery ribs, chopped (like the photo above)
1 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup toasted pecans
1 1/2 cup of mayonnaise
1/ 3 cup of PassionHoney
dash of salt
dash of pepper (or more, I love adding more pepper)

Lettuce or green salad mix

How you do it:

1. Chop celery
2. Cook chicken, dice (you can do this early in the day and just leave it in the fridge till you need it.)
3. Chop pecans
4. Combine chicken, celery, cranberries, pecans, and PassionHoney in a bowl. Set aside.
5. Stir together mayo, salt, and pepper. Combine with chicken and stir together.
6. Put it on some lettuce or a green salad mix.

Enjoy!

Sarah

CranHoney-Apple Cake

The day felt like fall. We all agreed that it had finally arrived. Leaves crunched beneath our feet. The cool crisp morning warmed up to a warm afternoon. The men in the family spent the day working on our harvest equipment. The women were cooking, cleaning and chasing children around the house. It was what I imagine a perfect Autumn day to look like.


For me, it was wonderful to hear the chatter and conversations float through the house. Just two weeks prior, I had returned home from a summer spent in Europe. I missed the family conversations, the projects we worked on around the house, cherry harvest on the farm, the summer markets where we sell honey and, most of all, the family dinners where we share our happenings of the day.


I loved to cook. So, I pulled out this recipe for a Honey-Apple Cake that I had wanted to make. I love dabbling in creative cooking, so I adapted this recipe from Southern Living just a bit to create a CranHoney-Apple Cake. The smell of cinnamon, apples and sweet honey soon filled the house.


The cake turned out wonderfully. It tasted as good as it smelled. And, paired with a little vanilla ice cream, it quickly became the perfect finished to a hard day's work on the farm.


From our farm to your house, enjoy!


Elizabeth

CranHoney-Apple Cake

Yield: Makes 1 (10-inch) cake

Ingredients

1 cup chopped pecans, divided

1 cup sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup CranHoney

3 large eggs

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 cups chopped Golden Delicious apples

CranHoney Sauce (recipe below)

Vanilla ice cream (optional)

Preparation

Grease and flour a 12-cup Bundt pain; sprinkle bottom of pan with 1/4 cup pecans. Set aside.

Beat sugar, oil and honey at medium speed with an electric mixer until well blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until blended.

Combine flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Gradually add to sugar mixture, beating at low speed just until blended. Stir in vanilla, remaining 3/4 cup pecans, and apple. Spoon batter over pecans in pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 55 to 60 minutes. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Remove from pan, and place on a wire rack over wax paper. Pour 1/2 cup CranHoney Sauce over warm cake. Cool.

Heat remaining CranHoney Sauce. Drizzle over a slice of cake and, if desired, ice cream.

Honey-Apple Cake recipe adapted from: Southern Living - September 1999

CranHoney Sauce

Yield: Makes 1 1/2 cups

Ingredients

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup butter or margarine

1/4 cup CranHoney

1/4 cup milk

Preparation

Bring all ingredients to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring constantly. Boil, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes.

Honey-Apple Cake recipe adapted from: Southern Living - September 1999