Bernice's Birthday Cakes

I made two birthday cakes for Bernice, a chocolate one for her to take to work and a lemon and guava one for her family party. I forgot to take pictures of the chocolate but the lemon one is pictured below. This was an experiment in buttercream frosting because the chocolate one was vegan. The cake is easy, just make the always-vegan crazy cake, but frosting is harder. I read up on the frosting tub labels in Safeway and the common thickener seems to be cornstarch. I messed around and it worked pretty well. I'm going to record the recipe although I'm likely to play with it more next time.

For the lemon cake I tried a flour buttercream from The Tough Cookie. It was good although it tasted rather like vanilla pudding and got soft easily.

Vegan Chocolate Buttercream (not pictured)
Mix 1/2 c water, 1/2 t salt, and 2 T cornstarch. Cook stirring constantly until cornstarch thickens. Mix in 1 c sugar and stir until dissolved. Keep cooking to thicken further, watching closely and stirring while reducing heat if necessary.

Cool to room temperature.

With a mixer, beat in 3 T shortening (helps to stabilize it) and 3 T coconut oil (helps it set in the cold). Add 1/4 c cocoa powder, 1 t cinnamon, 1/8 t cayenne, 2 t vanilla. Chill in refrigerator for 10 minutes. Beat again (chilling should help it stiffen properly if the room is warm) and gradually beat in 1 c of vegan margarine and 3 oz of melted dark chocolate. Continue beating, alternated with chilling time, until fluffy and creamy. Store in the fridge but warm to soften before use. Note that it must be kept cooler than room temp or it will melt and possibly sag and lose the fluffy texture. The cake should be refrigerated after frosting. (and in between layers if needed)

Next time:
Try more cornstarch. Possibly more sugar. Maybe more cocoa. And vary the other flavors as desired.

The lemon cake is layered and the crumb coat is going on

Crumb coat finished

The cake is fully frosted. I just have to remove the parchment shields from the tray.

Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens

Liz, Patrick, and I biked to Kenilworth for the Lotus and Water Lily Festival on Saturday. It was great even if we had to dodge around Minnesota Ave because the bike path isn't finished. We saw the Asian Cultural Dances and lots of flowers. I had no idea lotus are so nice!

Here's the cute little boys dancing

And the crowd

The Korean drum ladies

Burmese and Indian mash-up!

Green lotus pod

Lotus opening

A sea of lotus

Lotus fully open

These leaves are huge! (that's my hand)

And here's Liz checking them out

The leaves are superhydrophobic (according to Wikipedia) and water puddles up without wetting them. Apparently this lotus effect cleans the leaves. 

Everyone is a photographer!

Ordinary water lily

Another lotus for good measure

Fancy tropical water lily

I liked the different leaves on the tropical hybrids

This giant round lily leaf looks like pizzas in the water

Some of them are varigated

And the frog is using this one, it was probably a 2-inch frog so you get an idea of the size of the leaves--giant!

Mature lotus seed pod

Sarah, Liz, and Patrick

Happy Fourth of July!

Fourth of July makes me remember family time in Madras. Remember when we filled up the pagoda with crackling snakes and small fireworks and set the whole thing off? I seem to recall a miniature mushroom cloud from that experiment! I won't be lighting my own fireworks this year but I do plan on watching the National Mall ones from the roof of my friend Kori's building. I just finished making a cherry pie and a rhubarb pie to take to the grilling party too. 

We are too far-flung to all get together any now, so I want to wish everyone a fabulous 4th in New York and Minnesota and California and Oregon. May you have friends and family and food and fireworks. 

With love and virtual hugs to all! 

Here is Kori's 4th Feast,

Of all the things in Wisconsin, I will share rhubarb coffee cake

I am at Mark and Laura's with the family (except for my sister) this week to celebrate Rachel's graduation from Hurley High School. We are having a great time and I made rhubarb coffee cake for breakfast today (Memorial Day) to general approbation. Here's the recipe so I have it later and I can share it with you.

Rhubarb Coffee Cake

Adapted from this one on Epicurious

For the cake
2 c flour

2 c whole-wheat flour
1 t salt
2 t baking soda
2 c sugar
1 stick (4 oz.) butter, softened

1/2 c oil
3 eggs

2 T molasses (or 1 T blackstrap)
1 t vanilla extract

1 T vinegar
2 c yogurt (I used part Greek yogurt, could also use buttermilk)
5 c diced rhubarb (or maybe 6 c...)

For the topping
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 T cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 deg. F. Grease a large sheet pan (9x13 might be too small, 11x17 probably better) or line it with parchment paper. Or use a 9x13 and a smaller pan for the overflow. 

Whisk together flour, salt, soda, and set aside. 

Mix the topping, set aside.

Beat sugar and butter until light with a mixer in a large bowl. Add oil and beat smooth. Add eggs one at a time and beat well each time. Beat in molasses, vanilla, and vinegar. Beat in yogurt and continue mixing until smooth (a couple minutes). 

Mix in the flour blend a third at a time. Fold gently. Add rhubarb while there are still many flour lumps and fold together until evenly mixed and most visible flour is gone. This helps prevent overmixing. Pour/spoon (it is thick) the batter into prepared pan(s). Sprinkle with topping. 

Bake 40 to 45 minutes. Less time if you have spread it thinner. Maybe only 30 minutes in two pans.

Notes: I reduced the sugar in the original recipe and you could even cut back more. I used small rhubarb stalks and diced them finely so they melted into the cake. Very good that way but if you wanted distinct rhubarb chunks you would need bigger pieces of rhubarb. Next time I would try a streusel topping instead of plain cinnamon sugar.

Here's the last half-pan of coffee cake. The rest was gone before I got to my camera! 

Books to read

Book and author recommendations from Ruby and Erin.

Embassy Run, or make that #EUEmbassyRun

I ran the EU Embassies on May 9...well some of them. 28 in a day would be a lot more work. It was an organized event by Capital Striders and RUNINOut.

Here's the list of embassies:

• Austria
• Slovak Republic--bobbin lace
• The Netherlands--cheese and licorice 
• Czech Republic
• Hungary--cheese biscuits and vizslas 
• Poland--pierogi and insects in amber
• Finland--picture with the Ambassador (a lady) and tasty food
• Italy--chocolate eggs
• Denmark--rest on the grass and eat a marshmallow-y thing coated in chocolate and coconut. They tossed us water bottles as we left--Yay! 
• Ireland--step dancers outside (didn't let us in)
• Greece--baklava and tzatziki (super nice!)
• Latvia--rye bread, recipe book, and info on Black Rooster Bread in DC. Here's a reviewer on why that is so exciting. It's like the bread I ate in Latvia! 
• Sorbetto--not an embassy but a really nice break (pink grapefuit and strawberry flavors if you're wondering)
• Sweden--oat crisps, ginger cookies, SÖTSAK KAKAOBOLL, and elder flower fizz from IKEA. And they put up a finish line for us!

Kori and I did 10.5 miles according to the calculation by Runkeeper. We deviated from the official course to see Latvia and Greece. My legs were darn tired after all that running!

If you want to see more pictures exercise your social media skills and search for #EUEmbassyRun on Twitter and Facebook.

Milling around in front of Austria

A selfie at The Netherlands

Tired at the end of the day but she's got a flag in her hair

So do I

I know, I know, 2 of my 4 faithful followers are waiting with bated breath for the tales of Latvia. I'm working on it but that will take longer than a quick post about Saturday. The Google App came back with my file so I do still have it...I just had to suffer 36 hours of heartburn over it. But I'm really glad it came back!  

Lost file!

I spent hours on the airplane yesterday writing all about Latvia. Alas it seems that the Google Docs app on my iPad lost the file. I haven't been able to find anything to help so far. If you can help me recover the file you will get to read about my trip to Latvia sooner. Otherwise you'll have to have patience while I try to recreate it.

I'm so mad at Google right now!!! Don't trust the Google Docs app in offline mode.

Update: After 36 hours of heartburn the app and the iPad managed to get it together and my file reappeared. I don't know what went wrong, but I'm just glad to have it back. I immediately saved a backup!