Friday, May 14, 2021

Friday Chat: Flowers and Cake



" Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you... "
MAYA ANGELOU, 'On the Pulse of Morning'


We interrupt this blog post. I posted this earlier today, but for some reason B-l-o-g-g-e-r had issues with it and removed the post and comments that were attached to it. They said the post breeched content guidelines. I'm scratching my head for I cannot imagine what—it has to be a glitch of some kind. I'm now re-posting it. The text remains the same but I changed the title and lead photo. So with fingers crossed and a little prayer whispered, I press publish. Hope everything works now. (I've backed up my blog, just in case.)


Spring is still in its early stages around here, and although things are coming to life in the garden and trees are unfolding tender green leaves, there's still not much to show you yet. There are barely buds on the lilacs, and we're still not sure if our somewhat hardy roses survived the winter. With fingers crossed, we keep checking for signs of life.

The greenhouses are humming with excited gardeners. I did a curbside pickup the other day for some plants I ordered: several pots of hollyhocks 'Radiant Rose' (rose pink) and 'Las Vegas' (multi-colours) and three climbing perennials—a container of fast growing hops to screen an area, a 'Doctor Ruppel' pink and white clematis, and two 'Dropmore Scarlet' honeysuckle for climbing up the drain spouts, alongside any itsy, bitsy spiders.

Later this afternoon we're anticipating an outdoor visit with dear friends who are dropping by after some errand running. Since I knew they were coming, I baked a cake. Cinnamon Coffee Cake is a simple and easy recipe that pairs nicely with ice cream and fruit like strawberries, or pears. Or, if you are familiar with Susan Branch's vanilla cream sauce, you just know it would be a delicious combo. We'll have ours today with ice cream and strawberries. And tea. Yorkshire Blend.



Cinnamon Coffee Cake

1 3/4 cups flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 cup shortening
1 large egg
1 cup milk, soured with 1 teaspoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla

In a large bowl, mix flour, baking powder,
salt, and sugar.
Cut in shortening until mixture looks like
bread crumbs.

In another bowl, beat egg, milk, and vanilla.
Make a well in the flour mixture and add liquids.
Stir until moistened.
Pour into greased 8" round or square pan.

Topping
2 Tablespoon butter
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Melt the butter. Mix in brown sugar and cinnamon.
Sprinkle mixture over top of batter.

Bake in preheated oven at 350°F for 20 - 25 minutes,
until golden brown or sides pull away from pan.

Serve alone or with ice cream and fruit.
Or, serve with Susan Branch's Vanilla Cream Sauce, recipe below.

 Susan's Vanilla Cream Sauce

1" piece vanilla bean
2 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup sugar

Slit vanilla bean in half lengthwise and
scrape seeds into a small saucepan.
Stir in cream, bring to a boil.
Add sugar, stir, and remove from heat. Chill well.

Place cake slices in a puddle of sauce on a dish,
or pour sauce over slices, whichever you prefer.


* * *

On that sweet note, I'm wishing you a beautiful weekend.

Heart hugs,
Brenda
xox



Photo (top): Image by S. Hermann & F. Richter from Pixabay



26 comments:

  1. My mouth is watering for that delectable cake, served with ice cream and strawberries OR Susan’s Vanilla Cream Sauce. Yum! Did your outdoor visit get caught in the rain we had this afternoon? I hope all went well. And I’m glad your glitches have been corrected.
    - Joy

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    1. Joy, we got the nice rain here too and so we ended up social distancing in the garage for a quick visit. We didn't bring out the china cups thought, wink. And the cake was yummy!

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  2. Oh, now that's inconvenient! I left a comment on the first post, but I'll leave one here, too. I hope you enjoyed your visit and that delicious cake. The cream sauce sounds delicious!

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    1. It felt a bit scary, too, not knowing what was going on. I saw your first comment and I thank you for sharing a second. That cream sauce IS delicious! If you have Susan's A Fine Romance, the recipe is in that book of hers.

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  3. Here too, Spring is bursting out all over the place! The boulevard beside our lane is all lovely with that delightfully bright green known as 'sap green'. And I catch faint whiffs of poplar tree sap which instantly transports me back to childhood. Also, now I'm hungry for cinnamon coffee cake, hehe. Happy weekend to you too!

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  4. Brenda, that is a delicious looking cake. I was going to bake today, so I think I will try the recipe.

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  5. Lovely post as always! Thank you for the recipe!

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    1. If you try it, Marie, I hope you enjoy. It's a recipe that works when a person doesn't have a lot of ingredients in the house. It tastes like apple cake or pie but without apples.:)

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  6. That’s troubling about blogger, Brenda! On a happier note, that cake and vanilla cream sauce sound amazing!

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    1. Yes, it is a bit troubling. I've been wondering off and on if it isn't time to consider another platform. At least explore the possibility.

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  7. The Cinnamon cake looks as delicious today as it did yesterday.

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  8. That is scary, when blog servers have glitches. I backed up several years' worth of my blogs to documents, but haven't done that with the most recent ones. I feel vulnerable!

    Your mention of hollyhocks made me wonder if I will get any this year. I've never seen them sold as starts, and I forgot to start my own in the fall. So I just have my very few plants that don't get enough sun, really, but they keep coming back!

    It's such an exciting time of year! I envy your little party with cake!

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    1. My mom used to grow hollyhocks on the farm. We always knew summer was drawing near to the end when the hollyhocks were tall enough to peek through the kitchen window. I always think of those long ago days when I see hollyhocks. I hope our plants grow this summer! It's nice that yours keep coming back.

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  9. I just noticed Out of Africa on your current reading list. I also have been listening to it at night when I can't sleep :-)

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    1. I love the old movie with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. I recently watched it on Amazon Prime and enjoyed seeing it again after all these years. Now I am enjoying the memoir on which the movie was loosely based.

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  10. That cinnamon cake looks and sounds delidicous! Have a great week ahead.

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    1. It was very nice. Almost a sense of an apple cake without the apples. I think the recipe is old, maybe from war or depression era ... the recipe came from someone in the family tree.

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  11. Blogger is making me a bit nervous too! A few things recently have made me think I should look into backing it up! That cinnamon coffee cake is exactly what I am craving! yummy. I hope to be getting into a greenhouse today. I've never thought of planting something up beside the itsy-bitsy and not so bitsy spiders that always climb up the drain-spouts.:) I just might look into doing that! I hope you have a beauty-full week<3

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    1. Janet, I do recommend backing up your blog. If you're wondering how to do that on Blogger, it's pretty simple. In your dashboard, select Settings. From the list that comes up, select Manage Blog, then select Back Up Content. For me, it downloads the content of my blog in html to my PC 'Download' file. I'm going to start saving every post as well to a word doc from now on. // It was Rick's idea to plant vines to climb up the drain spout. We had scarlet runner beans one year.

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  12. glad i tried again and there you are...with new plants, and springlike thoughts. We are almost into summer now with 90 degrees. spring is short here and summer too long!

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    1. I'm so glad you found the new link too, Lin! Stay cool as you head into those high temperatures.

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  13. I didn't know that Blogger "moderates" posts! I'll have to try backing up my blog too, just in case...

    I got the notification that the FollowByEmail widget will be discontinued after July 2021. But I don't think I'll both looking for another e-mail options since I don't have a lot of subscribers.

    I never acquired a taste for coffee as a beverage, but do enjoy it in dessert format, like your cake!

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    1. Margie, I'm not sure what "flagged" in that post with Blogger, but I got an email the following day, advising that they'd reevaluated my post against their guidelines and realized nothing was amiss and were returning the post to my blog - no explanation (or apology for the anxiety they stirred). I could have republished it, except I'd already rewritten a replacement post. // Yes, I am sad to hear that the FollowByEmail widget will be discontinued - I'll have to decide what to do about it soon!

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  14. How exciting to be having a visitor and a sweet, yummy something to make it even sweeter! I hope you had a lovely time!

    (Eek to the Blogger troubles! Glad you were able to repost!)

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To My Beautiful Readers,

Some people come into our lives, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never the same. ~ Franz Peter Schubert

Thank you so much for leaving your 'footprint' here in my comment box. I do appreciate you taking a moment to share your thoughts today.

Brenda xo