Quotidian Notes: Friday Bread

Wednesday we had another storm - ice and snow, wind and rain. It was lovely the day of. Seth boiled us up a bath in the huge oil drum he'd brought home at Christmas. Cut in half, it makes a tub deep enough to be completely submerged, wide enough for two to sit side by side, and so long we could fill it with four comfortable, bathing couples - assuming we had any interest in baths-with-friends, which we really don't. 

We sat in the deep tub, filled neck-high with melted snow, sipping gin and watching the snow fall. The air hovered just above freezing, but we were steaming in our cozy little tub. It's these moments that remind me exactly why I love this hidden, homesteading life. Home-grown produce, new eggs, and soaking, naked under the snow in my own front yard.

* * * *  * * * * 

Thursday we learned that the heavy, ice-snow of Wednesday night was not at all easy to clear away. We waited through the day for our plow-guy to come and clear us out. He's been so reliable all winter, but we never saw him yesterday. Finally the chilly air hardened the wet snow and we took a chance and pushed our own way out. The last turn of the driveway needed shovels and a bit of struggle. We found exactly where the plow-guy stopped on Wednesday - a pile of heavy, thick snow right across the road. I guess he ran out of places to put it. 

* * * *  * * * * 

rising

Today we baby-sat my in-law's dog, he's old and sick, and can't last a long day home along. He needs his pain medication and regular meals. I don't mind, I brought along my bread flour and Peter Rienhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice. I adore this book. The recipes are to die for, and he's fantastic about passing along the spirit of baking, I always feel so welcomed to play with his formulas..I made my go-to bread recipe: his Ciabatta, which is so straightforward, it's perfect to start with and ideal (outside Lent) fresh out of the oven and smeared with Amish butter and raw, local honey. Within Lent, the raw honey itself is delightful, or dipped in soup, or olive oil with roasted garlic smashed up into it, or...anything really. Today was a no-oil day, so we were a bit limited, but honey is ok anytime! 

Rising

I also tried out Peter's Focaccia for the first time! I haven't tasted it yet, because it's obviously not Friday appropriate, but tomorrow will be a blessed morning. I played with the formula a bit anyway, because I had a whole bag of dried figs I wanted desperately to use. The only changes I made were to add honey to the dough (along with some chopped figs) and top the dough (pre-final proof) with olive oil, sea salt, rosemary, and lots of figs. I want this tomorrow, sliced and served with smoked salmon, arugula, and drizzled honey.

Fresh from the oven

For dinner, I made pita bread from a pinterest recipe. Pita bread has always been sort of a mystery to me. I've never even tried to make it. But oh my goodness is it easy! At least according the this recipe! Thank you Aimee at Under the High Chair! It was perfect with our rice and bean soup tonight.

pita and stew

 * * * *  * * * *

Breakfast cookies...

I've been looking for something Fast-appropriate, but chewable, sustaining, and portable. And these are delightful! Again, I found the recipe on Pinterest and edited it according to what I had and what I like. The original looks pretty tasty, but I don't have bananas, or dried cranberries, or fresh strawberries..I had figs, and honey, and maple syrup, and walnuts, and almonds, and oats, and cinnamon though. As well as a small handful of flour to help it bind without the banana, and a bit of bran to hearty it up a bit. They're fantastic.

  * * * *  * * * * 

I'm tired, I've been fighting a cold all day. It was gray and dripping outside, listening to Kate Wolf and loving the easy kindness my husband gives us. It's a quite, internal sort of day for my little family. The sort of day that makes me feel as though the whole earth is collecting her strength, readying to birth the Spring at last.

Kitchen Thoughts

 

Baking delights me - there's so much magic there! Today we have ingredients: flour, sugar, butter, eggs; tomorrow, a cake on the table - healing wounds and filling bellies. Like all household tasks..it brings life into order; and like all household tasks, that order never lasts. Yesterday, I pulled a Cardamom coffee cake from my collection of ingredients - a cake with buttery, creamy, coffee and spice frosting; caramelized walnuts, and ground almonds..it lasted the night. We enjoyed it, we shared it with my husband's parents. Nothing lasts forever. 

I thought again on The Quotidian Mysteries as I frosted my little cake: "striving for wholeness is, increasingly, a counter-cultural goal." Too many times we strive for one thing or another - "Things exercise a certain tyranny over us." We strive for health, for money, for beauty, or babies, or perfection in some aspect of life.. but wholeness is never quite attainable, except in snatches: a perfect afternoon, a pot of tea, a moment in Liturgy; Wholeness can never be stagnate..it will always end. But in the daily things, repeated again and again, "like liturgy..never completed, but only set aside for the next day" it is born anew.

Cardamom Coffee Cake 
       with Caramelized Walnuts

  3/4 cup Butter
  3 Eggs
 a little over 3/4 cup Caster Sugar - use white, or natural, but lighter in texture and flavor than turbinado
  1 cup Self-Rising Flour (or add...
  1/4 cup Ground Almonds
  1 Tbs Instant Coffee in 1 Tbs hot water - I know, don't give me that look..I actually used a splash of regular coffee, and it actually did effect the cake..definitely acceptable, but not ideal..you can get away with it, unless you're really picky.
   1 heaping teaspoon Cardamom
   1/4 cup Chopped Walnuts

Frosting

   1/3 cup Butter
   2/3 cup Powdered Sugar
   Splash Coffee (again, the recipe calls for instant- in the same amounts as above - this time though, there is no trouble at all with using a splash of real coffee)
   1/2 teaspoon Cardamom
   1 Tbs Heavy Cream

Caramelized Walnuts

about 1/4 cup chopped Walnuts
1/2 cup Caster Sugar
1 cup water

Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes (test it with a little stick or something!). Let the cake cool completely before frosting it.

The mixing together is pretty basic - do what you would for any other cake (cream butter, sugar until fluffy - add eggs one-by-one..then everything else. I do recommend blending in the coffee last - if you don't use instant [if you do use instant..add it with the eggs]..adding it earlier gives the butter mixture less cohesion).


The frosting is also basic. Make butter-cream frosting, just beat in coffee and cream [together] at the end.

The Caramelized walnuts are not as basic, but very do-able...and if you fail - you still have sugary walnuts. To make them: Place the walnuts on a greased baking sheet [or one lined with baking paper]. Dissolve the sugar [1/2 cup, remember?] in the water, over a gentle heat, stirring with something either wood or metal, not plastic or rubber or silicone [I'm sure there's a reason beyond aesthetic, the recipe is very insistent]. Bring to a boil, and wait for mixture to turn thick and golden. Then plunge the pot into a sink (or bowl) of cold water, and drizzle the caramel over the walnuts. Let them sit until the cake is all frosted and then decorate.  

(you can tell from the photos that this batch of walnuts didn't caramelize so much as just sugarize..what did I do wrong? I was too enthusiastic in plunging my pot of caramel into cold water..water got into it and I had to re cook it down..the color and texture were lost though..only the flavor remained. Don't be too enthusiastic! Careful plunging is best.

Enjoy!

   

Recipe adapted from The Simple Things Magazine and from Fiona Cairns' Seasonal Baking.

Honey and Fig Cakes for the Afternoon

 We're still at the in-laws. I'm having a great time baking and writing and sleeping long hours at night. We'll be home by Saturday - refreshed and ready for the new year at home..we can't wait to settle back in, but at the same time, we're loving this easy, on-grid life!


It's a fun time to get routines back in order - including our afternoon tea, writing schedules, and early mornings in peace and preparation. 

For this afternoon's tea, Yarrow and I have baked a honey and fig cake (I traded a piece of cake with Yarrow for an attempt at a nap..she tried, she really did, and so she got her slice..silly girl, who says 'no' to a nap?)

Honey - Fig Cakes

Set about a cup - 1 1/2 cups dried figs in triple sec or rum to plump up for about an hour.

Then put

1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup raw honey

1/3 cup turbinado

In a bowl and blend until creamy, then add 3 eggs, a splash of vanilla, and the zest of 1 orange and blend again.

Then, mix in:

1/2 teaspoon allspice

1/4 teaspoon clove

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1 cup flour

1/2 tablespoon baking powder

As your mixing in the dry ingredients, splash in about 1/2 - 3/4 cup heavy cream (Raw Jersey - if you can find it!)

And fold in the figs and liquor.

Pour into one or two small cake pans and bake at 350 for about 25-45 minutes (depending on size of the pans).

When the cakes cool, put about 1/4 cup melted butter in a bowl with about 1/8 cup honey and a splash of triple sec..blend well and pour over the cooled cakes.

Enjoy!

Sour Pickles and Slow Days

We opened up the sour pickles today! I put them in the crock..following this recipe last Tuesday.  They taste amazing! And the horseradish leaf really helped keep them crisp! I'm putting in a new batch tomorrow..more of them too! 

I canned pickles and dilly beans on Tuesday..Friday we'll be canning more - either pickles, beans, carrots or blackberries..or a bit of each. It's hot in the kitchen, but with the big open places where windows will soon be, it's not unbearable. The whole process is making me feel so awake and purposeful. This is the pinnacle of my retreat. I'm tempted to extend it into September - not because I need to, but because I love ordering my life this way! I'm going to try a sort of lighter version of the retreat in September: carrying over the most beneficial aspects and loosening some of the more serious restrictions. My phone is definitely staying off most of the day, I love having that distraction gone.

Our meal-times have really hit a rhythm. At least, breakfast and lunch..tea and dinner are a bit of a work in progress these days. Today we had egg-salad with fennel and red onion on seedy, multigrain bread, with avocado slices and turmeric-y summer squash. And sour pickles, of course!

7 Quick Takes

 1.

We've been practically living on quiche recently.  Quiche and crepes and anything involving eggs..but not fried eggs, nor omlettes, nor poached; I'm feeling very done with eggy eggs but the chickens are so proud! 7 - 9 a day and once a horrifying 13 eggs in one day (we have 9 hens, but two are old and rarely lay. Last night's quiche was cheddar, chard, kale, basil, fennel, and sun-dried tomato (because we have other abundances to work through as well). I made 2 full size and 5 portable (tartlet) quiches and we ate them with a salad all our own! They make fantastic leftovers!

2.

Yesterday began my month long retreat and observance of the Dormition fast. For this fast, we're just avoiding meat, alcohol, and sugar..but my retreat will extend the fasting (apart from the excesses of the Dormition itself!) through the month, and add to it with scheduled reflections, more time for play with Yarrow, ora et labora.. and a full-body cleanse, a spending fast, and lots of time in the garden! I began well yesterday morning, but later in the day Yarrow completely disregarded line 7: '11:00am: Yarrow Nap.' We battled it out for 3 hours. I made Yarrow sit on her bed after nursing failed. And she sat, clutching Da and Jesus, Mr. Elephant and Mr. Lion. Crying a little, laughing a lot, and refusing to sleep. I'm grateful at least that I could tell her 'stay' and she'd stay while I went back and forth to the kitchen, baking quiche, and halfway to the stream to haul water for the pigs. Retreats are never perfect though, when there isn't an awake toddler, there's a woman chewing gum constantly, or an old man praying loudly and five words ahead of everyone else. 

3.

I have to make pickles soon! And start eating cucumber with every slice of quiche.. 8 came in yesterday, 4 on Tuesday, and the weekend looks terrifying! I've stocked up on spring roll wrappers in anticipation; and there are plans for cucumber water, cucumber sandwiches, cucumbers and hummus..but pickles are essential too! I love the thought of pickle jars all along the kitchen wall, waiting to be eaten on snowy winter afternoons.

4.

Retreat Cake #2

Summer Country Cake

I made this yesterday, it's an edited form of a fantastic British recipe. I didn't have enough clover blossoms, and I'm avoiding real sugar. So here it it, I was really impressed with the result!

2/3c. very soft butter

1/3 - 1/2 c. honey

4-6 fresh clover blossoms, separated (optional)

3-4 fresh bee balm (monarda) blossoms, petals only

2 eggs

1 c. white flour

1/4 c. whole wheat flour

2 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 c. finely grated carrots

1/4 c. milk

Grease an 8" cake pan. Beat together the butter and honey, add flowers, then eggs and beat well. 

sift together flours and baking powder. add grated carrots then fold into wet mixture. Add milk and mix gently. Turn into the pan and bake at 350 F for 35-40 minutes. Until cake is well risen and springy.

We served it plain, but it'd probably go well with a light icing, or with dollops of cream fraiche, or a tiny smear of lime curd..It pairs wonderfully with tea!

5.

Facebook is official out of my life! For August. I will go back after the month ends, but with an altered relationship..I've mentioned it before, but I think increased honestly would be helpful on facebook, so long as it's combined with Charity. I'll be using it more to share things that may cause discussion..and I've recently distanced myself from groups where deep discussion is not supported. Overall though, I think August will give me a 'facebook cleanse' as well as physical and spiritual one and prepare me to go back in a better way.

     6.

Current Detoxifying Tea :

1 part Dandelion Root

1 part Burdock Root

2 parts Nettle

2 parts Milk Thistle

1 part raspberry leaf

A little over a tablespoon makes a pot, which gives me about 4 - 5 cups a day. It's nourishing and detoxing, and very mild..sometimes I'll add a sachet of my 'Cinnamon Sunrise' tea to kick up the flavor a bit.  The habit of drinking tea is in itself a healing one. I've given up coffee for the month, but for the moment, I don't really miss it at all!

7.

Tonight's Detoxing Bath:

Epsom salt

Dandelion root

Burdock root

Lavender leaves and oil

Rosemary leaves

To be enjoyed with Non-detoxing tea, beautiful music, incense, and restful reading..

Blessed weekend! And check out Conversion Diary for more of these!

Retreat Cake

I’m ready for August. My dearest friend turned 30 last weekend and, as always, our birthdays have merged in my mind so that I have trouble remembering that I am still 29 for almost two more weeks!

I’ve been easing into my retreat; I want it to be everything it can be and preparation is so essential for that. This morning we poured tea from pot to cup, aware of the process, we drank it with bowls of yogurt, flax, and blueberries fresh from the yard. Grapefruit is featuring prominently in almost every meal, and my pots of tea are always steeping something.

I’m forcing my days into order -gently..rising earlier to write in my journal and prepare for the day, limiting distractions, and shouldering responsibilities - the kitchen is a mess as I work my way through the organization process. One of my goals for the month is to bake more often - to have cake in house often - for Seth and Yarrow, as it doesn’t really fit in with a detox. I don’t mean that sort of cake that’s a sugary mess. Not ‘birthday cake’ or ‘wedding cake’..something versatile - that can fit with breakfast, lunch, or tea - something like Blueberry Corn Cake. I’ve made the recipe twice and we love it! Ready to pair with yogurt and coffee at 6am or with tea and cream at 4:30pm..this is cake that looks and tastes like love.

Blueberry Corn Cake

1/2 cup Wholemeal plain flour (I used 1/4 cup whole wheat and 1/4 white)

1/2 cup fine-ground cornmeal

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 eggs

1/2 cup maple syrup (you could use honey if you’re not abundantly blessed with Maple trees..but you might want to reduce the amount..honey is sweeter.)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup Walnut Oil (I used melted butter because I don’t have walnut oil, I think any light-flavored oil would work as well..NOT olive oil though)

2 tbsp Milk

About1/2 - 3/4 cup blueberries

The cake bakes at 350 F. Grease an 8” pan with oil or butter. Stir together the dry ingredients and set aside. In a separate bowl, whisk eggs and syrup, walnut oil, vanilla, and milk. Pour into the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Toss in blueberries and stir lightly. Pour/spoon batter into cake pan and sprinkle on remaining berries. Bake for about 30-35 minutes, until the cake is lightly golden and springs back with pressed. Enjoy!

Easter Cake

It was supposed to be a beautiful, triple-layer mini cake - with layers of strawberry sauce in between and light white butter-cream frosting. But my mini cake-tins were buried somewhere in the shed, so I altered the design to a double layer 9 inch cake..until one of the layers collapsed right out of the oven (I tested it, and it should have been done, but I failed somehow it my test, and the whole center was still batter). I tossed it to the chickens and concentrated on the single layer of cake I had left. Baked it long and carefully, cooled it all night, and on Easter morning, discovered that it too had a unfinished center (honestly! This has never happened to me!!..as far as I can remember). So I got desperate. I cut out the center, filled the hole with strawberries, a bit of sugar, and lime zest, frosted it, and gave it over to Seth for decoration (I wanted to toss it, he wanted cake, so he offered to make it pretty enough to serve). And this is it:

Golden Cake

Sift together:

1 3/4 cups cake or all-purpose flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

In a separate bowl, cream 1/2 cup butter, then add 1 cup sugar and beat until light and creamy.

In yet another bowl, beat together 5 egg yolks and 1 whole egg until all lemony-colored. Add the eggs to the butter & sugar, beat together until blended.

Then add the flour mixture to the butter mixture alternating with 1/2 cup milk and mix tell blended (but don’t over-mix!)

Pour it all into two buttered and floured 7’ or 8’ round cake pans and bake at 350 for God only knows how long - they say about 45 minutes or until golden, but apparently my stove makes cakes deceptively golden..TEST it well with a knife or toothpick to ensure doneness..then you can layer it with strawberry sauce and butter-cream, and decorate as Seth did, with more strawberries. It’s amazing with creamy coffee, and a little goes a very long way. Wesołego Alleluja!

Lenten Meals: Holy Week

I’m baking a lot this week. Early on, the baking is entirely penitential (in sort of an decadent way): Just lots of ciabatta and rye loaves. Holy wee is a time I like to up the Fast a bit, removing oil and alcohol entirely, and simplifying my meals to the extreme. This week I’m keeping it to grapefruit, oatmeal, bread, and soup..maybe some sunflower butter if I’m feeling a need for protein. Because Yarrow is still nursing, I can’t really go on a hardcore Holy Week fast, I need calories, but not too many, I want to really rejoice in the Easter season! Seth and Yarrow are bread-fiends.. They can never get enough. I love bread, but more the baking end than the eating..still, I want some leftover for my own meals, so today I’m baking a double batch (four largish loaves) of ciabatta and one recipe of rye (two sandwich loaves) to dip in my soup at lunch and dinner.

My favorite Ciabatta recipe is one I gleaned from Peter Reinhart’s The Breadbaker’s Apprentice. I don’t always follow the recipe now, but the basic idea is easy to grasp. It requires bread flour..the gluten, or proteins, or some aspect of the flour are essential to this bread being all open and beautiful. It also requires a long rising time - the sponge (or poolish as he calls it) sits out for 4 hours and then chills for an additional 8 hours..if you let it sit longer, you get a nice sourdoughy flavor, I’ve let mine sit out all day and then not chilled it, which works just fine, so don’t worry if you forget all about it overnight.

The Sponge

About 3 1/2 cups Bread flour

About 1/2 teaspoon yeast

About 2 cups water (neither hot nor cold - the kind Jesus spits out)

Mix it all together, cover (I usually use a clean, cloth napkin) and set to rise. After about 3-5 hours, chill in the fridge (or anywhere cold but not freezing) overnight..if you remember.

The Dough

The next morning, let the sponge warm up for about an hour, then add

About 1 1/2 teaspoons yeast

About 2 - 3 teaspoons salt

About 3 cups Bread flour

Enough water to make a soft, sticky dough - not unmanageable, but very sticky and ‘loose’ feeling..this totally depends on your humidity, your flour, and your sponge’s consistency, but usually ends up being between 3/4 a cup and 1 1/2 cups.

Kneed the dough for about 5-8 minutes, until it’s all smooth and all the flour has been incorporated. Turn it out onto a floured board (or your table) and let it rest for about 10 minutes, then stretch and fold the dough (fold is pretty self-explanatory). Let it rise for about 2 hours, fold again and let it rise again for another 1 1/2..Then sprinkle cornmeal on a baking sheet, and gently shape the dough into large (or small) loaves. Let them rise again for 30-45 minutes. Bake with the stove starting at 500, but turn it down (or dump on some wood to force it down, if you’re baking in a wood oven) and bake around 425-450 until the loaves are all golden on top and sound hollow when tapped - about 10 minutes in my stove. Let them cool to just warm before eating. They are amazing slathered in honey and butter.. But this is Holy Week, so don’t even think about it.

Monday's Meal

Monday.

Seth is home again, and we’re tucked inside, listening to the bitter wind outside. I love having him here. He fixed my rocking chair and began recovering Yarrow’s chair over the weekend, brought in wood, and laughed with me as an ermine chased the chickens - seemingly uninterested in eating any of them. I think he just wanted to play! We chased him off eventually, just in case, but I loved the little guy, and so did Luba. She wandered the yard for a while after, trying to entice him back for another chasing game.

Lenten weekends are decadent. We had wraps loaded with spinach, avocado, red cabbage, hummus, cucumber, and dried cranberries. We had a tomato-y fish stew with na’an for dinner on Sunday and the last of the wine. But Monday is here again, and the dish of oil on the table from last-night’s dipping is a reminder that this is one of the hard days. But I still have some red cabbage, so for dinner I’ll be making tomato-bean soup with red-cabbage salad on the side, and more na’an..unless I brave the wind and go out to bake in the kitchen. The tomato soup is easy:

soak and boil a cup of dried, soup-bean mix (or just dump in a can of beans..any kind would work, really, even lentils, I think), when they’re soft, keeping them in the bean water add some vegetable bullion if you have it, and some garlic and spices if you don’t. Add one can of tomatoes (whole, canned tomatoes are best, but I’m all out of those, so I just used a can of sauced tomatoes). Then let the whole thing cook for a while on low, you can leave it for a long while if you have it very low, and let the flavors meld together. That’s it..except salt!

The Red Cabbage Salad is even easier:

1/2 red cabbage, shredded

1 pickling cucumber, chopped

1-2 carrots, chopped long or shredded

Drizzle liberally with vinegar - I used a peach-infused vinegar, but balsamic would work well

Salt & pepper to taste

Then you put in all together in a pretty bowl - I like blue bowls with this salad because of the contrast, but yellow would be pretty to, or some crisp white-patterned dish..not so much red, I think..

Enjoy!

Lemon Curd and Cold, Cold Days

We spent Sunday preparing for the coming cold. This week is expecting the temperatures not to rise about 15 degrees, and hover in the single digits for days. My husband prepared by splitting and stacking firewood. Our house is loaded down with some fantastic maple and pieces of the pine we lost two autumns ago. I prepared by shoveling snow against the walls of the yurt for insulation, closing up our last two ‘privacy flaps’ over the windows and baking for the week. I have hopes of continuing today, baking the breads that are slow rising now on the cool floor and a batch of seed cakes. Sunday I made Danish, biscuits, and bread pudding. Things that can keep a bit, and provide a warming carbohydrates through the next couple days. Last week I attempted Lemon Curd for the first time, and having it, spread on biscuit, with just a dab of cream, is enough to make even the coldest day taste of summer. I’m going to try Lime Curd this week..and maybe marmalade. We might as well make use of the stove top while the house is fighting off the chill.

Lemon Curd

4 Lemons

4 Eggs (beaten)

8 Tablespoons Butter

1 Lb Sugar (they call for white sugar, but I only had Turbinado. It just makes the curd slightly less bright yellow. I like the creamy look, but I bought white sugar for the lime curd)

Finely grate the rind from lemons and squeeze out all the juice. Place rind and juice in a heatproof bowl or top of a double boiler. Stir in eggs, butter, and sugar.

Place over a pan of gently simmering water, making sure the bottom of the bowl doesn’t touch the water. Cook, stirring constantly (or just very often), until the mixture thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Pour into sterilized jars and can..or store in the refrigerator.

Makes about 6 mini-jam jars of Curd.

Borscht Recipe

There is a longer way to make borscht, which is fermented before being turned into soup, but this is quicker and easier, it's the recipe I tend to use.

Easy Borscht

 

3 quarts kielbasa, beef, or vegetable broth

2 lbs cooked, fresh beets
2-3 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 sprig of dill-weed

Cut beets into thin julienne strips. Add to simmering stock along with any of the escaped beet juices. Mince and add garlic. Add vinegar and dill. Simmer until flavors are blended, don’t boil or you’ll loose the color. You can serve it over Kielbasa or potatoes, or in a bowl with rye bread and butter.

Pancakes!

My father-in-law’s pancake recipe never fails. Last Sunday, while the rain poured down all around us, I cooked them up with peaches and cardamom for something warm and comforting against the weather. We had the wood-stove going again, a sad way to welcome in June, but it never got hot enough to fry the ‘cakes, so I made them on the little propane stove-top. If you’re cooking them on a wood-stove you’ll want the fire to be at about 400 degrees.

Pancakes

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons turbinado
2 tablespoons baking powder
1/3 teaspoon Cardamom

Sift all the dry ingredients together, make a well in the center and crack in 2 large, fresh eggs, then add:

2 tablespoons oil
2 splashes of vanilla
2 cups whole milk

Whisk it all together, but don’t beat the batter into the ground, a few strong whisks is all it takes. Scoop out a large spoonful (I usually use a 1/3 measuring cup for medium sized pancakes) and drop onto a buttered frying pan. Sprinkle on diced peaches. When the ‘cake is bubbly and sort of waxy looking, flip.

I like to stack all the finished pancakes in a tall pile, they look so hearty and filling all together like that. Top them with butter, and decorate with peach slices all around!

I served them with cardamom-spiced coffee, which is just coffee ground up with a pinch or two of cardamom added right before steeping. It’s best with milk, as the cardamom flavor is light, and doesn’t come out as well in coffee drunk straight.

Enjoy!

Wood-stove cake

Last week I tried something new. “Baking” brownies from a box had worked well on the woodstove before Lent, and my husband had worked a long day in the chilly rain, so in hopes of giving him cozy, tasty surprise, I attempted a stove-top cake. I used a basic recipe, added cardamom and an extra splash of vanilla, poured the batter into my smaller cast iron pan and stuck it on the wood-stove with a tin plate as a lid. I had to keep an eye on the stove, but about 20 minutes later the cake was done. The yurt smell lovely, and my husband came home to fresh cake and hot coffee; though he had to share most of it with Petka, who has a possessive attitude toward all food.

Wood-stove Cardamom cake

Sift together 1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose or cake flour and 2 teaspoons baking powder. Set aside.

Cream 1/4 cup butter with 3/4 cup turbinado or demerara sugar, add a liberal drizzle of vanilla and about a 1/4 a teaspoon of ground cardamom.

Mix in one beaten egg

          Add half the flour mixture, mix in with 1/4 cup milk.

Add the rest of the flour mixture and another 1/4 cup milk.

Mix batter and pour into a buttered and floured cast iron frying pan. I used a 6 or 7 inch pan, which was ideal for getting the cake thoroughly baked without burning or drying out.

Cover with a metal lid, tin plate or cookie sheet - anything will do, the point is to make the pan into a mini-oven. Set on a stove that’s burning around 300 - 350 degrees for about 25 minutes. The time will vary based on the temperature of the stove, and how consistent you can keep it.

When the cake is done, remove from the stove, let cool and frost with

Cardamom butter-cream frosting

1/4 cup butter

 About 3/4 cup powdered sugar (this varies a lot depending on how thick you want your frosting)

 About 1/8 teaspoon cardamom

Beaten together until creamy

Enjoy!