Still Life, With Cats

Hooray, it’s the weekend! That must mean it’s time for cake. Orange Pound Cake, to be exact.

Here is where I have to admit that pound cake is one of my favorite types of cake – there’s something about the dense crumb and the buttery mouth feel that makes me really happy (case in point – the Norwegian Sour Cream Cake recipe from King Arthur Baking Company is in regular rotation in my kitchen). So finding a recipe that combines delicious pound cake with the flavor of fresh orange (or in this case tangelo) sounded perfect.

Pound cakes get their name from the fact that they use roughly a pound each of all the main ingredients. I admit I winced a little when I saw it called for 5 eggs (egg prices being what they are right now) but oh, it was worth it, and not just because it used up half a dozen tangelos. The cake batter gets orange juice and zest. Then once it’s baked, you brush it with an orange glaze, and finally, once it’s completely cooled, you top it with an orange and powdered sugar icing. It sounds as if it might veer into too-sweet territory, but the tartness of the citrus tones everything down.

As with any other pound cake, this thing weighs a ton, but it’s absolutely delicious. The orange flavor comes through just enough to brighten the palatte, without being overwhelming, probably because it gets the bulk of its flavor from fresh juice and zest instead of relying solely on extracts.

Citrus used: 6 tangelos

Total citrus used so far: 10 tangelos, 4 lemons

Making a thing a day for Thingadailies.

Today is February 2nd, also known as Candlemas across the pond, which means it was time for crepes. Do not ask me to explain why one eats crepes for this day, as I actually have no idea why, but crepes are easy to make so who am I to question.

I made these Crepes with Lemon & Sugar, as the recipe fulfills both the citrus challenge as well as the need for crepes, but any crepe recipe would work here. I do have a crepe pan, but crepes will work just fine in a regular frying pan, as long as you make sure it’s well greased so the crepes don’t stick. Letting the batter rest for a bit before actually cooking them is also key – this lets the flour fully hydrate.

For this recipe, you make the crepes, then top with equal parts sugar and lemon juice. I was a bit nervous that they’d still be too tart, but in fact they were almost a little too sweet (probably because Meyer lemons are not quite a tart as regular lemons like the recipe calls for). If I was to do this again, I’d reduce the amount of sugar added with the juice at the end. Regardless, these were pretty tasty.

Total citrus used so far: 4 tangelos, 2 lemons

Making a thing a day for Thingadailes.

This morning we got up bright and early in order to make the house presentable for company, and this meant finally breaking out the nifty new gadget we bought ourselves during the after-Thanksgiving sales – a new vacuum cleaner.

You know you are a proper adult when you get super excited about a vacuum cleaner. But to be fair it is a combination vacuum cleaner that ALSO MOPS, and if you live in a house with all hard floors and an ever changing number of very busy cats and kittens, this is a massive game changer.

So while I tidied and unearthed the kitchen from a mountain of dishes, and baked the cookies for this evening’s exchange, and steamed and scrubbed the bathroom (after first relocating the *extremely* messy quintet of kittens who had been residing there to a new enclosure), Richard cleaned all the rest of the floors in the house with our fancy new device, and we both marveled over how fast it was, and how well it worked, and yes, I know this means we are officially old, but I’m okay with that.

Anyway. Once the house (or at least the upstairs – we shall not speak of the condition of the downstairs) was reasonably tidy, a bunch of friends came over and we all learned a new-to-us game (Mosaic), and gnoshed on all manner of snacks, and played with kittens. And then once that was done I packed up the cookies and headed off to another’s friend’s house, where several of us gnoshed on (yet more!) cookies and had a lovely time.

And now I am going to go keel over because as much fun as it’s been, it’s been a very, very long weekend, and as previously determined, I am officially old.

Tis the season for Holidailies.