That is gorgeous!!! Recipe?
Thank you! The best part of the centerpiece is the arrangement of the mini-veggies, really. I am just lucky my grocery always has them this time of year.
There are miniature carrots, pattypan squash, and zucchini, which you don't find at many groceries. I think they're for pickling, like baby cucumbers.
The fun part is then finding others that will look like the real thing - such as cherry tomatoes, boiling onions, cocktail corn on the cob, creamer potatoes, mini-pumpkins, baby bok choi.
I also put in Brussels sprouts, as mini-cabbages; cauliflower florets as mini's of whole heads; cut spears of broccolini to look like heads of broccoli; sugar snap peas as mini-pea pods or mini-green beans; very thin green onions snipped down to miniature. You get the idea!
I'll see if maybe I can find some instructions online to give a link on making the cornucopia, which would be better than my describing it. I've made these for several years, but not sure if there is anything online about them.
Basically, you make a form of a horn of plenty out of an 18" piece of aluminum foil, wrapped around into a cone and taped with scotch tape. You then stuff it with wads of aluminum foil to hold it open at the mouth. You spray the whole thing with Pam.
It takes 2-3 cans of breadstick dough, found with the canned biscuits and rolls in the refrigerated case at the grocery. You then unroll the dough and start wrapping the individual breadsticks around the form, starting at the tip of the pointy end, around and around, moistening the ends of the sticks to affix to the next one, and overlapping slightly so that the entire form is covered - no gaps.
When you get to the end, you braid or twist together one breadstick, cut lengthwise into 2-3 strips, then place the braid around the top of the opening of the cornucopia, brushing it with water or egg white or preferably, an egg wash of beaten egg and water, to stick it on.
Carefully put the horn of plenty on a baking sheet with a sheet of baking parchment on it - or sprayed with Pam. Then, brush the whole cone with either the egg wash or with melted butter for browning or "goldening." Bake at 375° for approximately 20 minutes or until golden and all the bread dough is baked.
You may have to make a small foil tent to put over the braid and other parts which brown a little faster than the rest.
It isn't hard to make, but doing the dough-wrapping part is a little more time-consuming than you think it will be and I have lots of practice!
Theoretically, the centerpiece is edible and you should provide a dip for the raw veggies and for people to pull off pieces of the cornucopia bread to also dip and eat. In practice, no one has ever actually eaten one because they're more fun to look at.
What I usually do is later make a soup with the veggies, such as Italian Wedding Soup, and grind the bread into bread crumbs to keep in the freezer for other dishes, like meatballs or meat loaf.
I'll see what I can find online.
OK - I found the original recipe here:
http://www.womansday.com/recipes/5676/cornucopia.html
However, the online version doesn't have all the photos of the "how-to's" that were in the magazine article way back when.
I did find someone else's series of "how to" photos on making one from regular bread dough, so here they are - you obviously can skip over the ones about the dough itself and see the ones on making and covering the foil form. This person cut up an aluminum baking pan for the base, which is not something I had seen done before:
http://clkl.textamerica.com/?r=1697874
http://clkl.textamerica.com/?r=1697880
http://clkl.textamerica.com/?r=1697885
http://clkl.textamerica.com/?r=1697894
http://clkl.textamerica.com/?r=1697907
http://clkl.textamerica.com/?r=1697908
http://clkl.textamerica.com/?r=1697911
http://clkl.textamerica.com/?r=1697914
http://clkl.textamerica.com/?r=1697931