I don’t want to get into the political whys and wherefores of this, but honestly, would you spend $990 on a blouse that looks like it’s going to bite off your right nipple?
Actually as a bird-phobic the whole ensemble (Ann Romney didn’t wear the trousers though) makes my skin crawl. Just look at the beady eye on that thing.
Continuing in my quest to make the most of my new bundt tin, and take over the world one bundt cake at a time, a couple of weeks back I made a Meyer Lemon, Rhubarb and Pistachio Bundt Cake. This ethereally soft and springlike bundt cake couldn’t be more different from the squidgy, fudgy chocolate cake I made for the Joy the Baker event, but it was still devoured with alarming alacrity by the whole family.
This cake is an adaptation of a recipe from Kimberly Taylor’s charming blog which bowled me over the minute it popped up on my Facebook page. Her cake features Meyer lemons and rhubarb, but I couldn’t contemplate putting these two ingredients together without adding pistachios, the flavours are a match made in heaven and the delicate pink and green pastel colours are so very spring-like.
Meyer lemons are a wonderful seasonal American delicacy, thought to be a cross between a true lemon and a mandarin. If you can’t get hold of them then normal lemons will do just fine. I amended the recipe by adding in some ground almonds/almond meal, some pistachio flavouring and sprinkling the finished cake with whole pistachios.
Ingredients
For the cake
1 cup butter
1 3/4 cups bakers’ (caster) sugar
zest of one lemon (Meyer or normal)
3 large eggs
1/2 tsp pistachio flavouring (or almond extract)
Juice of 1 Meyer lemon or 1/2 normal large lemon
1 3/4 cups all purpose (plain) flour
3/4 cup almond meal (ground almonds)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup buttermilk
3 cups fresh rhubarb, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
For the glaze
2 1/2 cups icing/powdered sugar
Juice from one lemon
2 tablespoons softened butter
Whole pistachios to sprinkle on top
Method
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F/ 180 degrees C.
Brush melted butter into every single nook and cranny of your bundt pan and then shake in a couple of tablespoons of flour, so that every part of the surface is greased and floured. Shake out the excess flour.
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together into a bowl. Stir in the almonds.
Cream together the butter, sugar and lemon zest until very pale and fluffy. Whisk the eggs together in a small jug and then little by little beat them into the creamed mixture, scraping down the sides as necessary. Add the pistachio flavouring and lemon juice.
With the stand mixer on a lowish speed, add a third of the flour mixture and then a third of the buttermilk and then alternate until all the flour and milk are fully incorporated. Mix for one additional minute.
Stir in the chopped rhubarb with a wooden spoon. Pour the batter into the prepared bundt tin. Bake for 1 hour. Insert a skewer or a stick of spaghetti and if comes out clean the cake is ready. If not return to the oven for a few more minutes until a skewer comes out clean.
Set a timer and leave the cake in the pan for 20 minutes, no more, no less. When 20 minutes is up (the optimum time, according to Joy the Baker, to ensure best bundt removal) turn the cake out onto a wire rack to cool fully.
To make the glaze, whisk the butter and lemon juice together. Whisk in half the icing sugar. Add the second cup of icing sugar and whisk until incorporated. The glaze should be thin enough to pour, but thick enough to cling to the cake. Either add sugar or juice to amend the consistency as appropriate.
Sprinkly a few whole pistachios over the top and serve when the glaze is fully set.
We interrupt normal blog service for a public service announcement.
After I posted the above picture on Instagram this morning I got a number of comments along the lines of ‘Toms makes WEDGES?’. Well yes, they do ladies, and have been doing so since 2010 as far as I can work out.
I got mine from a cute boutique in Ballard called Horseshoe which carries lots of Toms. I love the linings on these as much as the shoes.
As you were everyone.
Normal blog service will be resumed shortly.
At my baking class on Monday night (and thanks so much to everyone who supported it in any way, either by being there or spreading the word on Facebook and Twitter) we talked about making your own vanilla extract and I realised I hadn’t shared this with you on the blog.
As you can imagine, since I am a cake baker, vanilla extract is one of the most used ingredients in my kitchen, which was not good given how fiendishly expensive it is.
After doing some research online, I tried making it last summer, and I am utterly delighted with the results. Like so many other homemade foodstuffs, there’s no turning back when you’ve tasted homemade. And this is so, so EASY.
All you need is a smallish bottle (depending on how much extract you want to make), some unflavoured vodka or white rum and some vanilla pods.
I buy my vanilla pods in bulk via Amazon, so much cheaper than the single pods in glass jars you find in supermarkets. As for alcohol, if you want a pure vanilla flavour use unflavoured vodka. I however prefer to use a white rum such as Bacardi. The rum has a flavour that goes very well with vanilla, and adds an additional something, something to cakes and desserts. But which alcohol you choose is up to you.
Then all you need to do is fill your bottle with alcohol, score a few vanilla pods lengthwise so the seeds are showing (don’t scrape them out) and then add them to rum or vodka. How many you add is up to you and will depend on how the big the bottle is, how strong you want the extract to be and how many you can afford to use. I currently have around six in my biggish bottle, but experiment with what seems right for you.
Here’s my bottle posing out in the sunshine last summer, just after I’d made it.
Then leave the bottle in a cool, dry place (mine is in the fridge door) somewhere where’ll you see it often. Then, every so often, pick up the bottle and give it a shake. After several weeks the clear alcohol will darken to brown and will be ready to use. Thereafter just keep the bottle topped up with additional alcohol and vanilla pods as necessarily and depending on how strong you want your extract to be.
If you want to get going on your Christmas gifts now (hahahahahahahahaha!:-Ed) then homemade vanilla extract is a very quick, easy and thoughtful gift for the baker in your life if you put it in a fancy bottle.
