Good Eats

the view from here :: breakfast for dinner :: homemade liquid hand soap, peppermint :: pound cake

I'm not one to try a new poundcake recipe. My late grandmother-in-law's recipe for a giant pound cake is perfect in every way, and named accordingly: Julian cake. On the other hand, my mother-in-law never met a poundcake recipe that didn't pique her interest and prior to being diagnosed with Celiac's, she had a three ring binder of magazine clippings that was, I am confident, 25% pound cake recipes. 

I wanted cake, needed a dessert to share with friends and was limited to a random assortment of ingredients I had on hand. To my Pinterest boards I went and I discovered this recipe, modified here from its original artificially-smiley-teeth-baring version. It was so wonderful. It is not dense like a pound cake you're familiar with, very fluffy, but still very.... poundy? Is that a word?

For more kitchen inspiration, join all of us at Beauty that Moves. 

In the kitchen ... camp style

In case you missed last week's post, my "kitchen" was displaced for a few days this past week. We took a mini-vacation to Holly River State Park and had a wonderful time. We had planned to stay in the tent but the weather forecast was calling for damaging winds, hail and up to six inches of rain. We opted, understandably, for a cabin that first night. It was a luxury to have a real kitchen to cook in but it did mean that my menu got rearranged.

fried chicken breasts, spanish rice, and green salads :: apple crisp, prepped in aluminum pan for easy baking and clean-up :: iced tea with mint and lemon, made double strength for the trip, then mixed up table side (I do this with lemonade, too) :: fruit & yogurt parfaits make for an easy campsite breakfast :: nothing is an adventure without PB&J for the road :: we celebrated our safe return to camp with a stop in the restaurant - WONDERFUL strawberry rhubarb pie and blackberry cobbler :: whole wheat hearth bread a la cast iron :: smoked sausage and par-boiled potatoes with butter, prepped in an aluminum pan for easy fireside cooking :: a kettle for hot tea and cocoa, alongside our sawmill gravy (biscuits baked in the pan, too) :: a fried egg on top, to fuel our last day of adventures

It took a fair deal of prep work but I was very happy, when the time came to do the cooking, that I had made such plans. The fridge in the cabin was set too low, so my salad greens and my eggs froze and that changed menu options, too. We didn't starve, so it all came good in the end.

In closing, here are a few scenic shots of our trip.

Joining Heather.

Pam's Apple Cake

I now plan to do something I despise: review a recipe that I have changed beyond all recognition.

As I said yesterday, I made an apple cake. I used a recipe from a newish cookbook which I'm really enjoying - Cakes:River Cottage Handbook #8  by Pam Corbin. The book ought to be purchased because it is certainly worth owning. But I'll let you in on a little secret: you can see many of the recipes here, thanks to Google Books. This apple cake was on page 138, just in case you really wanted to know. ;)

I did as the recipe said except:

• instead of part whole meal and part plain, I used all plain flour,
• instead of a coarse dice of the apples, I used grated (juice squeezed out) because its what I had stored in the freezer from last fall,
• I left out the cloves and added cardamom and allspice,
• and I did not put sliced apples on top but I did reduce the squeezed-out apple juice to a syrup and drizzled that over the top when it came out of the oven. 

All that said, it was good. I was a bit surprised in the moment, but in hindsight not at all, that the cake was not very sweet. It is a PERFECT cake to pass as breakfast, or snack, or something to wash down with your coffee. A friend said that it was a cake that made you want a glass of milk without being a cake that needed a glass of milk. I think I'd like it better with part wholemeal, to make it even more breakfast-y. Don't put in the cardamom, I really think it should be left to pears, not apples. Do put in the cloves.

I suppose in summary, this is a note to my future self saying, "Make the cake, just do as the recipe says."