Tag: Charlotte’s Web

Caramel Apple Upside-Down Cake

Posted February 17, 2022 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments

If you can believe it, today’s recipe is actually inspired by Wilbur’s slop in CHARLOTTE’S WEB! Stay with me here. 😉 When the author lists the scraps included in Wilbur’s meals at the farm, he mentions upside-down cake and baked apples. I loved the idea of merging the two together into an amazing dessert, so here we are!

When it comes to upside-down cakes, I’m a total novice. I made one once but didn’t like how it turned out. So rather than try to develop my own recipe for this post, I turned to the Caramel Apple Upside-Down Cake from Sally’s Baking Addiction. Sally’s recipes are always winners for me, and I knew a sure-fire recipe would give me a good sense of how an upside-down cake should look at each step in the process. That way I’ll feel more confident developing my own upside-down cakes in the future!

As expected, the recipe was easy and turned out great. It was a HUGE hit with my 5-year-old son, who gobbled it up while chirping that it was “A-MA-zing!” I whole-heartedly agree. The caramel apple topping moistens the tender spiced cake just the right amount, and I appreciated that it wasn’t super sweet, allowing the apples and cinnamon to shine. It reminded me a bit of a breakfast bread, which has me scheming about making upside-down banana bread in the future! 😀

Mrs. Arable’s Canned Peaches: Learn to Can with Me

Posted February 3, 2022 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments

One of my favorite things about food blogging is it pushes me out of my comfort zone on the regular. For example, even though I found eclairs super intimidating when I first learned to cook, I made lavender lemon eclairs after only a year of blogging because they were perfect for my Secret Garden menu. I used to be terrified of cooking big birds, but now my cookbook, A LITERARY HOLIDAY COOKBOOK, has recipes for turkey AND goose. Over time, I’ve gotten a lot more comfortable pushing my culinary boundaries, and just this past month, I tried something I’ve had my eye on for years: canning.

In CHARLOTTE’S WEB, Mrs. Arable serves canned peaches to the farmers. Peaches are a great intro to canning because they are high in acid (making them a pretty safe option) and easy to process. Here was my perfect opportunity to take canning for a test drive to see if I like it! I don’t have any special tools (canner, jar rack, jar lifter, etc.), so I used tips from a few different sources to help me learn to can with the tools I already have. Here are the sources I consulted:

“Canning Peaches Safely at Home” from Practical Self Reliance
“How to Process Foods in a Water Bath Canner” from The Spruce Eats
“20 Canning Mistakes to Avoid” from Because We Can (this one is a Youtube video)

Canning is an exact science, so I highly recommend researching before you begin. This will help the whole process go smoothly and safely. Plus, I’m a novice myself, so the recipe below isn’t the be-all and end-all of canning advice. It’s a description of my experience, which worked well for me, but I’ll probably change my methods a bit as I learn more.

Overall, I had a good experience. I think it’s a bit too much work for small batches, but it’s a great option if you have a lot of fruit, jam, sauce, etc. and don’t want to waste any. I don’t think I’ll buy any canning tools quite yet, but I have lots of young berry bushes started in the backyard. Once those are fully established, I could definitely see myself having enough berry jam for big-batch canning. I’m glad I gave it a whirl!

NOTE: Just to reiterate, I am not an expert. Fully research canning before you begin and use recipes that have been approved for canning. This post is not a comprehensive guide and does not address every variable that can affect the canning process (such as elevation or lower acid foods). Consuming improperly processed canned goods can result in botulism. Be safe out there!

Templeton’s Smorgasbord Sandwich

Posted January 20, 2022 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments

Deviled ham? Swiss cheese? RADISHES? Stick with me, folks. Today’s recipe may sound a bit “kitchen sink,” but I promise it’s delicious. 😉

While reading CHARLOTTE’S WEB, I noticed a lot of the food revolves around Templeton the Rat. He’s mostly motivated by food, which I for one find highly relatable. The whole reason he agrees to go to the county fair is because the sheep wows him with descriptions of all the discarded food he’ll find there.

Today’s kinda weird yet tasty recipe is inspired by the lunch Templeton finds wrapped in a newspaper while looking for words for Charlotte’s web. It includes a deviled ham sandwich, some Swiss cheese, and a hard boiled egg. It got me thinking about the song “A Veritable Smorgasbord,” which Templeton sings in the movie, and I thought it would be fun to merge the whole lunch together into one sandwich.

The deviled ham was easy to whip up (I used my variation on a deviled ham salad recipe from Bellyfull). Since the deviled ham already included a hard boiled egg, I didn’t use one as a topping, but you could if want some extra egginess. I decided to throw in some radishes too, since Mr. Zuckerman grows them on his farm in the book. In the end, the whole flavor profile was giving me 1950s vibes in the best way, which is kinda perfect, since the book was written in 1952.

So don’t be shy, give Templeton’s Smorgasbord Sandwich a try. It might pleasantly surprise you, much like Templeton himself. 🙂

Corn Fritters

Posted January 6, 2022 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 2 Comments

Happy New Year, Wonderlanders! The last two months at my house have been a whirlwind of holiday activity, and it looks like I’ll be hustling for at least two months more. My daughter’s birthday was Monday, her party is Saturday, and my son’s birthday/party are a few weeks after that. With so much to do, it was nice to take a Saturday morning and just work on an easy, yummy blog recipe. Say hello to my first recipe from Charlotte’s Web!

These corn fritters are inspired by the county fair the characters visit near the end of the story. Fritters of any kind have a fun fair food vibe, and I was already workshopping a corn fritter recipe for fun with a whole bunch of fresh corn I froze over the summer. Basically, I was just looking for an excuse to make these fritters again. Sorry not sorry! 😉

What makes them so special? Depends on who’s asking. Maybe you’re a cheese person (if so, this recipe’s got you covered). Maybe you like red pepper’s one-two punch of flavor and color. Maybe you’re like me and think all food needs massive amounts of garlic. But I think the real magic is that you can sub in whatever makes you happiest. Green onion, jalapeno, cooked shrimp, sour cream drizzle—go wherever the spirit moves you! I think my favorite addition was a sprinkling of fresh basil on top. I was out of green onion and wanted a pop of green, so I gave it a try…and OH MAN it was amazing! 😀