Cak # 93 Tropical Ring Cake

October, and thus Autumn, is upon us in Maryland, and like every fall, the weather has turned cold and nasty, and the ground soggier by the day. It seemed then a perfect time to introduce the last cake in the book that has a summer feel to it, the Tropical Fruit Cake. Eating this cake is like eating the last bit summer, sitting on a warm beach in Key West, watching the fading light of sunset over the Gulf of Mexico, smelling the salty mixture of humid air and seafood. This little slice of summer of heaven, coinciding nicely with the end of the Boy's of Summer season in New York, is a throwback to the great days of summer, with little to do but watch the kids get older and the days get longer. Now, the days are shorter, the nights colder, and schedule full of holiday related items. Last week, we took both kids to Weber's Farm to pick out pumpkins. This week, we will pick out their costumes. Next week... who knows?

The cake this week called for flour, sugar, baking powder, vanilla, eggs, butter, and dried mixed fruit soaked in lime juice. The icing, an easy concoction to make, was just lime juice and powdered sugar, drizzled over the cake. The whole thing was garnished with some more dried fruit on top for decoration. Though the recipe called for fruit such as pineapple and mango, I went with a more regional approach including grapes, peaches, and apricot. A delicious cake to say the least!

My cake:

The book's Cake:

Check in next week to see what wonderful concoction we come up! Only a few cakes to go!

Cake #91 Lime Halva Cake and #92 Pear Cake

For a weekend that is steeped in baseball significance unseen in Baltimore for fifteen years, it seems apropos that this week's blog will be a double-header. Let me just say that I, like all Baltimore sports fans, am totally psyched that this weekend we have playoff baseball, as well as a still-dominant, if aging, Raven's team taking the field at 4-1 (oh boy ... Ted would be so proud at the theme of this blog so far). The reason why this week's blog is a double-header is because this week was spirit week in school, and between Baltimore sports and Edgewood sports, there was  just no time to get a blog written for last weekend's cake, so I am incorporating both cakes into this blog.

So this week was spirit week at a school and what a week it was. Just being back to school from maternity leave, I was overwhelmed to say the least, not even counting the added stress that teaching two nights at Towson adds. Ted had soccer two of the nights as well, which meant that on nights that I wasn't at Towson, I was with the kiddies after school until Ted got home; both of the kids were fantastic and I got lots of great times with them taking pictures and posing for the camera, but it was still stressful.  We had a great time dressing up for Manic Monday, Twin Tuesday, Nerd Wednesday, Superhero Thursday, and Spirit Friday ... special thanks goes out to all my A-side buddies who dressed up with me as well! The week was great, but of course, anytime you allow students to dress up, there is going to be some extra-special craziness in the classroom - kind of like a week long full moon! 

On Saturday night, Ted and I then chaperoned the homecoming dance. I feel like after five minutes on the dance floor, I could easily write a best-selling book entitled, "How to know when your dress is too short... and other life lessons learned at a High School Dance." The dance went really well, and I certainly do not mean to imply that every, or even most young ladies were dressed inappropriately, but it was enough to make me feel old. Only a decade removed from my own homecoming,  I on more than one occasion looked at Ted and made some comment that started with the line, "back in our day..." I think this is why I love teaching at Edgewood and at Towson, as well as why I love participating in things like spirit week; it keeps me in touch with the youthful moments in life that many people lose over time, and yet it always keeps me self-aware of the positive attributes of aging, like maturity and responsibility. Anyway, enough Dr. Phil-like speeches, on to the cake.

The first cake I made, last week, was a Lime Halva Cake, an interesting creation that would have seemed quite appropriate to eat in a swanky Cuban nightclub in 1950's Havana. Calling for semolina, baking powder, butter, sugar, eggs, ground almonds, lime juice and lime rind. Working with semolina was weird, as I had never actually seen it before, and assumed that it was really only used in pasta. It worked well though. The cake was topped with a homemade lime syrup made with sugar, lime juice, water, cinnamon.

My cake:

 The book's cake:

This week's cake was different than the Lime Halva cake, and yet brought it's own uniqueness. Aside from the standard ingredients of flour, brown sugar, pears, butter, eggs, baking powder,vanilla, and lemon rind, the cake also called for a mixture of rolled oats, sunflower kernels, and pumpkin seeds to mixed into the batter right before baking. As the cake was placed in the oven, I had to sprinkle raw brown sugar on top, in order to give the pears on top a crunchy, sweet crust. 

My cake and the book's cake:

Overall, both cakes were successful though Ted admitted that neither were to his real taste. I think that will be the status quo for these last few cakes, as they are all ones that we have saved for two years to bake (many for obvious reasons). Check in next week to see what crazy cake we have in the oven! Until then, happy baking!

Cake # 90 Plum Sponge Cake

 ONLY TEN MORE CAKES TO GO!

As I sit on my bed this morning, staring at Evie jumping on the bed, breakfast slobber still running down her face, and Liam, contentedly laying in his bassinet talking to bear stuffed animal Evie placed in with him on one of the first days he came home, I am reminded of the fast approaching truth that I have attempted to ignore for the past few weeks that Ted has been back to school; my summer is rapidly coming to a close, and the precious moments that I have spent with my children are dwindling by the second. These past weeks have been fantastic, we have gone to the park, made meals, watched movies, danced, played Barbie's, and just generally hung out as a family in a way that I have not done in a while. Liam has gone from a newborn lump that sleeps 22 hours a day, to a more active, personable lump that only sleeps 18 hours a day. He smiles and sticks out his tongue when you touch his cheek, and giggles every time he sits on his changing table and sees the hippo painted on the wall. Evie on the other hand has matured into quite the young lady. Not lacking in the personality department to begin with, she has now grown not only to be a spectacular daughter, but also the sweetest big sister ever. She plays with Liam, helps feed him, gets pacifiers and burp cloths from his room when needed, and tries to hug and kiss him at all the wrong times. It makes me proud as I watch them to consider that they are my children!

 

One week left and this phase in my life ends. I will be heading back to school on Monday, and both Evie and Liam will be heading to daycare with the greatest daycare Mom ever, Heather. I won't pretend that there is not a small part of me that is excited, if not happy about returning to school. There are classes full of students and even a fair number of new teachers who know of me in name only, and I look forward to meeting them all. I do love teaching and the challenges that it brings, and I am sure as the daily routine settles in, we will adjust accordingly. But in the back of my mind, there will always be the last few weeks and the joy that they have brought me. 

However, I am incredibly sad to leave my kids. This is the longest I have been a "Stay-at-home" mom, and it is a wonderful thing! It is so much more relaxing than working (lol)! So much so - that I have been able to set up an at home business and take a teaching job at Towson, in the off time.  I was shock at how much I could get done with the house when I am actually home during the day instead of at work from 6am to 6pm! But more importantly, I got to see Liam go from a scrawny preemie to a really big boy! Ted told me yesterday that Liam needed to move to his own crib before I went back to teaching full time, I cried. I am not ready to leave him. He is the sweetest little boy, and no matter what I write it cannot cover the feeling that many moms feel when they leave their kids - dread - dispare- depression, only cover a few of those feelings.

So, in honor of these last few days of extended summer family time, I chose the easiest, simplest cake left in the book (which in itself was a challenge as there are only a few cake recipes left and they are all the ones we have put off for two years because they looked complicated/ expensive/ gross!) so that I could maximize my time with Evie and Liam, and Ted as well. I made a Plum Sponge Cake, which, while not particularly spongy, did incorporate one of my most favorite fruits that do not receive much glory in the pantheon of the Safeway produce section, the Plum. The cake called for butter, eggs, flour, sugar, baking powder, almond extract, and ground almonds. Once the batter was made and poured into the pan, quartered plums, slivered almonds, and raw brown sugar were placed and sprinkled on top.  

My Cake:

The Book's Cake:

Check in next week as I prepare for my first craft show as a vendor on Sunday (The Perry Hall Apple Festival). It should be a great distraction from my first day back at Edgewood on Monday! Happy eating!

Cake # 89 Peachy Oat Crumble Cake

In a recent blog, I mentioned how I had significant trouble finding a fairly common ingredient ... mango. This week I was faced with a slightly different challenge, to locate and procure an ingredient which I am seriously unfamiliar with, despite it being common in apparently everything (from what I have read on one dubious website). Star Anise is the ingredient, and flummoxed was I. Sounding more like an astrological sign than a cake ingredient I reluctantly set off to Safeway in search of an ingredient that is common to many Asian dishes and also Christmas food; a natural connection if ever there was one. Star Anise tastes like licorice, which I hate, and looks like a star-shaped pine-cone, which I am ambivalent about. Long story short, it resides in the spice aisle of Safeway, next to Allspice, and apparently has been there all along, only to be passed over by myself and normal shoppers everywhere.

This particular cake was a Peachy Oat Crumble Cake, and the final result was quite delicious (weird ingredients aside). The cake called for flour, baking powder, ground star anise, butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and peaches. The topping meanwhile called for a mixture of oats and sugar, mixed with melted butter to give a stick consistency. Though I personally found the licorice flavor to be a bit much, overall the cake reminded me of a mixture of a coffee cake and a peach pie, which equals winner in my book. 

My Cake:

Book's Cake:

As this blog winds down, look for the cakes to get more and more crazy as all of the recipe we have been putting off for two years become more and more inevitable.