A Spring-y Cake

Are you tired of me going on about the spring yet? It was a really long winter! And spring flowers are the best! Isn't this tulip gorgeous? Tulips are one of my favorite flowers. More on flowers later, now, on to the food!


This is the Orange Sunshine Coffeecake from the latest issue of the Baking Sheet. Actually I don't know if this cake is springy exactly, since it's orange flavored, and citrus is a winter thing. But, nevermind, it's got a light, bright flavor that *I* think goes perfectly with this season! And, it's pretty (although, my drizzling skills leave something to be desired).


This coffeecake is made with a yeast dough, which is rolled out into a big rectangle and then covered in the filling--sugar, instant clearjel, cinnamon, orange juice, and a big pile of orange zest. The clearjel is a modified food starch which thickens without needing to be cooked. It's great for this filling, because it thickens it up and stops it from running all over the place (like it did the first time I made it, with regular cornstarch). You then roll it into a long sausage, form it into a ring, and then make cuts, about an inch apart and about 3/4 of the way through the roll (so you are not cutting the ring apart).


Okay, here's where the shaping gets fun--you turn the slices on their sides (still attached in a ring!), and every other slice gets folded towards the center. You can see now, why the clearjel is really important.


After baking, the cake gets a quick glaze made of confectioner's sugar and orange juice (and a bit of orange extract). I made this one a bit thinner than it should be, so it doesn't look as nice. Oh well, try, try again!

In the meantime, here are some of my favorite flowers from my trip to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden last weekend; the full set can be seen here.


Cherry blossoms--oh, so many cherry blossoms. I think they peaked a bit earlier this year; the Sakura Matsuri takes place this weekend I think most of the trees are past peak already. (Plus, really? No 2/3 train service this weekend? Gah. What the hell, MTA.)


And some more intensely red tulips.


Lilacs (you bet I spent ages standing there with my nose buried in them)!


More lilacs! Man, I love the garden. I think this weekend, I will try to make my way to the Bronx Botanical Garden. For a change, the weather is supposed to be nice on a weekend, woohoo!

Hey, we made it to Friday! :D

Countdown to vacation time

Well, the craziness of May is over, but the craziness of work has not let up. Haven't had time or energy to bake or cook much lately, but our CSA boxes start next week...just in time for us to go on vacation! Whoops! Oh well, we are headed to Vancouver in a week--anyone have any recommendations for things to do or eat? There probably will not be much in the way of updating here until after our trip, but hopefully there will be LOTS to write about soon.

In the meantime, we visited the Cloisters yesterday (my first time in years) and had a lovely time exploring. Photo above is from the herb garden, where we got to see all kinds of plants used in medieval life (for love, for magic, and for cooking, of course!; if I remember correctly, that is anise. I wish I had more pictures to show but apparently I have gotten too used to photographing food and can't photograph anything else well!

Saturday at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden

We had our first really warm day yesterday (79!) and it seemed like everyone was outside taking advantage of the nice day. Well, that makes sense because tomorrow it is supposed to be back down to 40 again. Sigh. Darn it, spring--how about some consistency?!

Anyhow, we went to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden for a little cherry blossom viewing. The official festival weekend isn't until the first weekend in May and the cherries here are definitely not at full bloom, but there were some trees that were really spectacular looking. I was sort of surprised by how long the line to get in was, but we were able to skip all that and go right in, thanks to corporate membership (well, there has to be *some* perk to my job!). Anyway, as usual I neglected to write down the names of the flowers, so just enjoy their prettiness (although if you happen to know what species they are, please drop me a comment!).


It was like a ceiling of flowers. So nice.


I think this is some kind of tulip, but I just liked the pattern--it reminds me of lizard skin.




My favorite, the tulip walk. Only a few sections were blooming, but in a few weeks it'll be one giant mass of tulips of all kinds. Yay!




They also have a nice collection of bonsais; this is my favorite, in the driftwood style. (I only know that because of their very helpful signs.)


A strange looking cactus!



And so this is not a totally food-less post, after we were done sniffing various flowers (and keeping well clear of the cactus spines), we went over to Chinatown to have enormous bowls of pho from my new favorite pho place.


I'll write up a proper post on Pho Grand sometime soon (like, when I can get better photos) but their soup is far and away the best I've tried in Chinatown. Plus, the staff there are super friendly...now if they would only change their music.