rose cake for the end of summer

School starts soon, and the evenings are feeling cooler. The province is on fire, but down here in the city it seems like summer's drawing to a close. I can't imagine making this cake anytime but summer, preferably in July with rose petals from my Ispahan bush in the back garden. You want rose petals with scent so commercial flowers won't do, and Old Roses are preferred. Perhaps some of you still have roses blooming, somewhere in the blogosphere?


Rose Petal Cake

3 eggs

1 cup of sugar

1 cup of butter, softened

1 tsp rose water

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup sour cream or yogurt

rose petals for the inside and top of cake

GLAZE:

1 tablespoons rose water

6 tablespoons lemon juice

1 1/2 cups icing sugar

Whipping cream for the middle of the cake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9 inch cake pan.

Beat the butter and sugar together until light. Add in the eggs and rose water.

Add half the flour mixture, and stir in. Add half the sour cream, a handful of rose petals and then add the rest of the flour and sour cream.

Pour the mixture into the cake pan and bake for 35-40 minutes or until a cake tester or toothpick inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then invert onto a cake rack.Once cooled, slice in two and lay one half on a plate.

Next, make the glaze. Sift the icing sugar into a small saucepan and put on low heat. Add the juice and whisk to break up any lumps.

Whip some whipping cream and put in the middle of the cake, then add the top half. While the cake is still warm, using a long skewer (or just a toothpick), poke holes all around the top of the cake. Drizzle the syrup over the cake. Sprinkle with some gorgeous rose petals and reserve some to serve with each slice.

It's all about the breakfast

Lately I've been trying to appease my sweet tooth and my desire to eat in a way that nourishes my body as well as tastebuds by at least starting the day with good intentions fulfilled. To that end I've been eating a lot of wholewheat toast with hemp seeds sprinkled on top and a half a banana sliced and smushed in. Sometimes for lunch too. And this generally works pretty well for me. The kids, however, get a little fed up with their toastly versions of this (marmite for him, peanut butter and homemade jam for her, dulce de leche for both) and so weekdays we sometimes have scones and Sundays are always pancakes. Which they never seem to tire of. Mostly we have buttermilk pancakes with - a small attempt to pretend they're healthy - a quarter of a cup of ground flax seed mixed in. Covered in berries and maple syrup of course, these are not punitive pancakes but happy Sunday ones!

Buttermilk Pancakes

1 3/4 cups flour
1/4 cup flax seed
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespooons sugar
2 eggs
3 cups of buttermilk
2 tablespoons butter

Combine dry ingredients. Mix eggs with buttermilk and butter. Add to dry. Butter the griddle and spoon batter on. After it's stopped oozing you can add a wee bit more to make the pancakes higher if you like. We like ours singly and large and sometimes in the shape of cat or bear heads. Once bubbles form it's a good time to flip the pancakes. Be confident and flip all of a sudden. Pancakes not taken by surprise sometimes don't flip as well. Cook on the reverse side for about one minute.

things which are nice on top of pancakes:
Maple syrup
lemon juice and icing sugar
toasted and chopped pecans
peaches, raw sliced or fried in a bit of butter and cinnamon
bananas (love maple syrup!)
granola (the crunch is a nice surprise in a pancake)
berries, lots of berries, fresh or compote

Useful toil and the ready snap

Max and I had a fabulous BC Day. We ate pancakes (grilled peaches in butter and cinnamon on top, mmmmm), made pickles (spicy garlic dill cucumbers and another jar of pickled dragon's tongue beans: I haven't made pickles for years and it's made me feel gloriously in charge of my destiny. Canning has that effect on me - a sort of putting one over on the man combined with pleasure at having what may pass as a skill), Max continued on his amazing Lego Star Wars restaurant board, went to St Anne's to listen to music (which may have been quite good: turns out Max has the same appreciation for listening to bands that he has for shopping for ladies' shoes). There was a great deal of tsking and sighing and a low sort of moaning noise such as a very sad cow might make coming from my darling boy till I gave up and took him to the Inner Harbour so he could indulge his strange passion for looking at Weird Stuff We Sell to Tourists.

Then we came home and had quite wonderful dinner of grilled peppers pureed with feta cheese on pasta followed by homemade oat bars (he got to help pick out the dried fruit and was pretty excited about them). Just my kind of day (bar the part where we can't chill out and listen to music because " the older lady dancing is scaring me")!