I caught the flu bug 3 weeks ago. For that reason and a few others, the last month has been a struggle. Not only was I in not so good physical shape, I was missing the best time in the garden.
I am a little better, or at least I try to convince myself that is the case.
Yesterday was a day of firsts for this Springtime.
I worked in the yard for 3-4 hours.
I potted up my first bluebell.
Last night we slept with some windows open, for what must have been the first time in a long while. Hearing the birds in the morning is such a nice way to wake up.
It is really remarkable how much we cleaned up the garden in December. But there is still so much to be done.
But it is that magical time when everything is coming up.
The leaves are budding.
You can find something new every time you look.
As I try to figure out what to do with the blog I will continue to take pictures and show some to you.
Here are just a few from yesterday.
Trillium
Hellebores
Garden paths are being reset.
We have new wood chips, to replace the ones that are broken down. There is a big pile on the back driveway.
We do a little at a time.
I am taking some of the broken down chips/dirt and using it to build up the beds. The ideal is to have the beds higher than the paths. If you have been piling chips on the paths they are going in the opposite direction.
So you work at it.
This lovely yellow hellebore even displays well. Most hellebores just hang down where you cannot see the flower.
Crocuses
Some of the larger crocuses seemed to want to show off this weekend.
Julia's Recipe
Pound cake
Sometimes a person wants cake. Usually I go with pie or pudding or even cookies instead of cake, but if you in the mood for cake, this is a nice recipe, more or less from the Cook's Magazine cookbook. I baked the cake in 2 loaf pans, so I suppose it can be thought of as a fancy quick bread. But better.
The ingredients: 2 sticks of butter (16 tablespoons or 1/2 lb.); 1-1/3 cups white sugar; 3 eggs plus 3 egg yolks; 2 teaspoons water; 1 teaspoon vanilla; 1-1/2 cups flour; and 2 lemons.
Plus parchment paper!
If you use unsalted butter, you will need 1/2 teaspoon of regular (not kosher) salt. If you use salted butter, you will not need any additional salt.
I started by leaving the butter on the counter for a couple of hours so it would soften up some. Then I put both sticks in the big mixer and beat it until it was smooth, as shown. I added the sugar slowly, beating all the while, and then I let the mixer run for about 4 minutes, stopping half-way through to scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl. The butter-sugar mixture became very pale and very smooth.
I let the mixture sit while I took the zest off the two lemons. I have one of those microplane rasp things which works nicely. I ended up with about 2 or 2-1/2 teaspoons of lemon zest, which I set aside in a little bowl.
I mixed the eggs, egg yolks and the tiny amounts of water and vanilla together in a cup and poured the egg mixture into the butter-sugar slowly, while the mixer was running.
After the mixture was again smooth, I added the lemon zest and beat it in.
I took the mixing bowl off the stand and set it on the counter. Then I took out a sieve, measured 1/2 cup of flour into the sieve (which was over the mixing bowl) and tapped the sieve to sift the flour. There were a few dry lumpy bits at the end, which I mashed down through the sieve. I then gently folded/stirred the flour into the batter. Then I repeated the flour - sieve - fold routine two more times until I had added 1-1/2 cups of flour.
Very thick batter.
Conclusion: use parchment! The cake on the left was baked without it, and it ended up with a crust. The cake was tasty and it had a nice texture, but it did have a crust. And it was a little harder to get out of the pan.
So use parchment paper. Cut two pieces and put them in the pan - one length-wise and one cross-wise. Push the parchment to get it into the corners of the pan as well as you can. I used alligator clips (the office supply things - big paperclips) to hold the paper down while I spooned the batter into the pan.
I baked the cakes for about 45 - 50 minutes in a pre-heated 325 degree oven. The cakes are done when a bamboo skewer or whatever you use for a cake tester comes out clean when poked into the top center of the loaf. I started checking after about 35 minutes, because over-baking is not a good thing. My cakes were baked in an 8" x 4" pan and a 4" x 2" pan. The little one was done in about 40 minutes; the big one in about 50 minutes. If you bake all of the batter in one pan, use a 9" x 5" loaf pan and plan on baking the cake for more than 60 minutes - up to 70 minutes.
The observant among you will notice that once again we have extra egg whites. They can be frozen in a little container (label the container so you know how many whites are in there) for use in angel food cake or meringue. Or they can be added to whole eggs when you make scrambled eggs. As for the lemons, denuded but otherwise unused, I used my juicer and added the juice to the bottle of artisanal lemon juice in my refrigerator.
The cake is not so sweet, slightly lemony and very fine-grained. One could use orange zest instead of lemon, but why would you?
Odds and Ends
I garden with an eye always on the weather forecast. At the moment it is suppose to stay above freezing. Well, as I check this morning there is a 29 degrees lurking at the end of the week.I had been bringing some of the crotons out on the front porch. They do so like the fresh air.
I guess they may have to stay on the porch and quickly come back inside if needed.
For now I will close and listen to the gentle rain, another sound that has been absent when you live with closed windows.
Get outside and enjoy the Spring.
Philip
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