Monthly Archives: April 2024

Let Us All Eat Cake

food, ,

I’m not sure I trust anyone who doesn’t like cake. Sorry, that is just how it is. So, when I was thinking about a new blog topic, I thought of occasions past, captured in photos, and my mind went immediately to cake. (Especially since I had already written about noodles.)

Do all families have a “signature cake”? I suspect many do. Ours, going into its third generation, is a sour cream coffee cake with nuts, which is equally good for breakfast, a mid-morning or afternoon snack, or for dessert. It’s buttery, cinnamony, and just totally delicious. It is known by the name “Jewish Nut Ring” in our family, although we are not Jewish, and I think that my mother got the recipe from a women’s magazine, probably sometime in the 1950s. Our recipe is very much like this one but we would never, NEVER add raisins or chocolate chips as suggested here, and ours includes walnuts, not pecans, and involves pouring melted butter on top before baking. My mom had a special round pan for this (now my sister has it), but I found a suitable one years ago at a yard sale for just this purpose.

Do all families also have signature birthday cakes? I know many who do. My sister’s was a white cake, baked in a rectangular baking dish, split in half and spread with apricot jam, reassembled and coated generously with whipped cream. I think it fell out of favor some time ago. Mine is a keeper – the Chocolate Pinwheel Cake, very much like this one, which has been tracked down to a 1954 recipe “courtesy of Baker’s Chocolate and Carnation Evaporated Milk,” two of the main ingredients. So, though I never asked her about it, is likely to stem from my mom browsing through those women’s mags again.

Our version, passed down through a series of hand-written recipe cards and pieces of dog-eared note paper, has an important difference from the above recipe, in that the filling has a healthy (or unhealthy) dose of instant coffee instead of more chocolate. And, really, more chocolate is not what is needed in this cake. Swirling an unadulterated, and almost obscene, amount of pure melted semi-sweet chocolate into the batter to make the “pinwheel” design is the key methodology. When it cools, it forms an intense, crunchy chocolate orgy, which is offset somewhat by the fluffy, not too sweet mocha filling.

Various other cakes have come and gone, witnessed by this little parade of photos, but these are the two with the most memories and staying power. It’s no wonder, as they are delicious, but also evoke special times in the kitchen and at the table, sharing sweet moments bite by bite. I’d love to hear about other cake memories!

The classic nut ring. My mother, sister and I have made hundreds of these over the years, and my daughter is the third generation baker in possession of the recipe.
One of the many Chocolate Pinwheel Cakes, and since this is not my cake plate (or my countertop), I think this one was made at my sister’s house. The cake assembly is tricky, as it involves cutting the two rounds in half each, to make four layers, with scrumptious filling in between each and around the edges. You have to pick the prettiest “swirl” for the exposed top layer.
My sister doesn’t bother with standard women’s magazines, she subscribes to Bon Apetite and Gourmet…and often finds complicated recipes that we need to execute during the holidays. The inside of this cake, made by my daughter M.E. (who is a really good baker) was even more complex than the Pinwheel cake, with a layer of cake filled and rolled into a big round. That’s why she’s looking so satisfied with herself for pulling it off!
Maybe baking complicated cakes rubbed off on her at a young age, after being impressed by her mother’s (somewhat amateurish) rendition of Mickey for her second birthday?
Doubt if I will try this one again, but I was inspired when I read a book that had the recipe included. You, too, can read the book and recreate Burnt Sugar Cake with Maple Frosting at this link! Or just bake the cake if you don’t have time to read the book. (It was an okay book, though, but the cake was better than the book, in my opinion.)

The Wonderful Whirled of Plant Life

plants, ,

This late winter and early spring, a recurring theme in my scattered photo topics has been the varied world of plants: alive, extracted, in bloom or semi-dormant. Flowers, definitely, but beyond their showy riot, some strange and wondrous plant-adjacent places and things to ponder.

The best way to share this kaleidoscope of colors, mixtures, and marvels is through photos with captions. And so, enjoy, and think about the plants in your sphere, some of which you might be overlooking or taking for granted in your daily life or far-flung adventures.

Back in February, my friend Lise and I visited the eclectic Museum on O Street. I was enchanted by the garden at the front of the museum, depicting Alice in Wonderland (sporting a red rose for Valentine’s Day) and the early hellebores at the far right, the earliest of blooms in our area. The museum in general is worth a visit if you have several hours and don’t mind spending $30 to explore countless rooms full of secret passages and strange juxtapositions.
Locals, you’ve got til the end of April to catch the as-usual-great orchid exhibition in the Kogod Courtyard between the Museum of American Art and the Portrait Gallery!
My former intern and long time colleague Katy sent me peonies for a retirement present. They were in various stages of bloom, so became “the gift that keeps on giving.” The peonies in my garden, this reminded me, are the legacy of my great aunt’s garden in Blairstown, NJ. I dug up a bunch of rhizomes many years ago and they still flourish though my aunt has been gone for years. Friends and family old and new, flowers binding us all.
You probably need to zoom in to read the ingredients of this alarming antique tonic which was displayed on the window ledge of Beans in the Belfy, an old church turned cafe in the river town of Brunswick, Maryland (visited by my friend Debi and I for our almost annual afternoon tea treat, falling somewhere around or between or birthdays). If you get beyond the alcohol and – gasp – CHLOROFORM – there are a list of botanicals including wild cherry.
Speaking of cherry… you can’t get away without a shot of the iconic blooming cherry trees around the Tidal Basin. They made their appearance early this year, peaking even before the Cherry Blossom Festival started, and as usual coinciding with spring breaks so that the crowds were enormous. Many locals skip a visit for just that reason, which is a shame. They never get old.
Another thing that never gets old is a good sunrise on the beach. Got this snap through the beach grass while visiting my sister in Hilton Head Island, SC. The sunrise is more dramatic with a foil such as some handy plant life!

In the category of “who knew?!” our visiting friend Rita and I ducked into this urban farm called Area 2 Farms off of Four Mile Run. The unassuming door to an old paper warehouse opens to a thriving business, providing greens and veggies of various sorts to subscribers. The hydraulic set up with lights, watering systems, and other stuff I didn’t really understand was fascinating and maximizes what can be grown in this indoor space.
Finally, my favorite photo of me at the retirement party I shared with long time buddy and colleague Diana. (Who sent me the photo. Thanks for photo bombing, Erin, though I could have “removed you” thanks to Google Photos, but didn’t even try!) It’s been a whirlwind of flowers and plants and other wonders for the past few months!