Tea Tasting: Whisky Cake

Thanks to Traczie for the great photos of the tea party!

I have several books from this really cute series of Favourite Recipes that cost about $2 each on Amazon, and they feature recipes from various parts of the UK. The recipe that I’m using today is from the Scottish Teatime Recipes book.

I made this for the Tea Tasting we had last month. Instead of one big cake, I made it in mini muffin tins, which were a great size, but the brown sugar in the recipe really caramalized onto even my awesome nonstick pan, making them a little hard to get out. I also made a couple of mini rounds, which would probably be a perfect personal cake size.

I made a few changes, and you can play with the ratio of the icing until it suits you, but these were quite popular and I’ll likely make a variation of them again.

Ingredients: Cake

3/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter
3/4 cup soft brown sugar
3 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup whisky (I used Jameson)
zest of 1 orange

Ingredients: Icing

2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup confectioners sugar
1/4 cup honey
juice of 1 orange
toasted sliced almonds to decorate (optional)
1 tablespoon whisky (I used Jameson)
orange extract to taste

Directions

Preheat oven to 375*F. Grease mini muffin tins (or two 7″ sandwich tins).

Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl. Add the orange zest. Beat in the eggs one at a time and whisk until the mixture is pale and fluffy. Sift in about half the flour and add the whisky. Fold into the mixture. Sift in the remaining flour and fold in.

Distribute the mixture into the tins. Bake for 12-15 minutes for mini muffin tins, 20-25 minutes for sandwich tins, until light golden. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

To make the icing, put the butter into a mixing bowl. Add the honey, whisky, orange extract, and the orange juice. Sift in the icing sugar slowly and work the mixture gradually until the ingredients are combined. When it reaches the desired consistency, spread over the cakes.

A container apple tree!

Did you know that you can grow apple trees in containers? I found this out in a book sometime during the last year, and ever since then, I have been dead set on getting one. They have to be planted on a certain rootstock so that they don’t accidentally get to be 15 feet tall or something, but if you buy the right variety, and it’s planted on a rootstock that is fairly small (these are called “dwarf” trees), you can get a fair amount of fruit from a container apple tree.

I’ve been doing a lot of research on it, and I’ve gone back and forth on what variety to buy. Apples that are best for eating, or for cooking? What about their storage qualities? It should be a tree that’s fairly disease resistant, and one that’s partially self-fertile, since otherwise, I’d need to have multiple trees in order to get it pollinated. Maybe I was asking too much…

And then, it struck me. When I lived in England, I used to go to a fruit stand in Borough Market in Southeast London, and there, I had the best apples I have ever tasted in my life. They were a beautiful russeted color, with a sandy skin like a pear instead of a shiny skin, and the taste was unlike any grocery store apple I’d ever had in the USA. In fact, I’d never seen an apple like that in a store in the USA.

Here’s a photo of them that I took when I was living in London.

I wanted to grow those apples.

Problem was, I wasn’t quite sure what those apples were.

I knew the name of the farm in Kent, a place that folks like to call the Garden of England. They have an email form on their website, but I couldn’t get it to work!

“Would it be ridiculous if I were to call England to try to find out about this apple tree?” I asked Charlie one day.

“Yes,” he said.

“But I have Skype credit,” I told him.

“Ok,” he shrugged.

And so I called and left a voicemail with my email address, and a very sweet person called Joyce emailed me. “Lovely of you to think of our juice when you are so far away!” she wrote.

She told me that they grow Egremont Russets, which they find to be lovely for both juice and eating, and I must agree.

I then began my hunt for an Egremont Russet tree, but as I mentioned, Russeted apples aren’t very popular in the USA. While I did find a place or two that carried them, they were not only sold out for this season, but they only had them on a larger rootstock, meaning a tree much larger than I could manage in a container.

I sent an email to Orange Pippen Trees, asking if they might have it on a smaller rootstock next year. [Due to when you're supposed to plant apple trees, they generally ship in springtime only.] I got another kind email back, this time from Richard, who told me that they only did the Egremont Russets on the larger rootstocks, but he recommended a St. Edmund’s Russet, which will be available on a B9 rootstock. It’s another English Russet variety, he told me, that is very similar. He offered to set up a reservation for me for next year.

The St. Edmund’s Russet is partially self-fertile, but apple trees that are partially self-fertile tend to produce more if they have another tree around. This left me wondering… should I get a second tree?

I’d been considering the really, really small apple trees that only grow to be a few feet tall. Check out this video from Gurney’s…

A tree that tiny would be manageable (it’s barely the size of some houseplants!) and it would help me get a better crop on the Russet, which is what I really, really want. These dwarf trees tend to be a little more expensive (I’ve shopped around quite a bit), but Gurney’s is having a sale for $25 off a $50 order, so last night, I took the plunge and bought one. I figured it would also be good for me to get acquainted with caring for an apple tree in a container before the one that I’m really jonesin’ for arrives.

I ordered the Honeycrisp Apple Lil’ Big Tree Deluxe. (I got a pack of Jack-Be-Little Pumpkin Seeds to push the order over $50 to qualify for the coupon.) I love getting honeycrisp apples from the grocery store, and I can’t wait to taste them from my own backyard (even though it will be a long wait until I can taste them!). Orange Pippen’s site has a great feature that lets you make sure that the trees you’re getting are good pollinators for each other, and that helped me choose Honeycrisp as a variety.

The tree should arrive in April or May, and I’ll be sure to post pictures when it gets here! I’ll have to wait til next year for the St. Edmund’s Russet, but that should give my little guy a bit of time to get settled, grow, and get strong.

How exciting is this??

Seedlings are up!

A handful of the little seedlings that I have in trays indoors are already up! So far, I have cells of Broccoli, Blue Curly Kale, Tom Thumb Lettuce, Dino Kale, and Radishes coming up indoors. The ones that haven’t germinated at all yet are peppers, spinach, and green onions.

The weather’s been pretty awful here the past day or two, so I have no idea how the stuff out under the hoop houses are doing. I haven’t even peaked into the containers! I’ve just let them be. The forecast says we’ll have sun by the weekend, and I’ll see what everything’s up to by then.

Tea Tasting: Mock Tuna Sandwiches

Thanks to Traczie for the great photos from the tea tasting!

We had a whole bunch of vegetarians coming to our tea tasting, so I decided to try out a mock tuna salad that I’ve been reading about all over the internet. (Seriously, there’s a version on The Happy Herbivore, on AllRecipes, on vegweb, and they’re all essentially the same.) Basically, canned chickpeas stand in for tuna, and I must say, it’s a pretty remarkable substitution. My friend Kira helped me prep this, and we saw it taking shape, and marveled at how much it looked like tuna salad. Then, we tasted it.

“That’s kind of weird how much it tastes like tuna salad,” I said.

Kira tasted it. “That’s just creepy,” she said.

“Yum,” is what our guests said the next day.

Ingredients

15 ounces chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 whole celery stalks, finely chopped
1 pickle, finely chopped
1 small red onion, finely chopped
2 tsp nutritional yeast
2 tbsp mayo or veganaise
1/4 teaspoon brown mustard
splash of lemon juice (optional)
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

In a small bowl, mash the chickpeas (a pastry blender is really good for this!). Add the nutritional yeast, mayo, and mustard. Mix well. Add the celery, pickle, and onion. Stir. Refrigerate for at least 20 minutes or overnight for best flavor.

For tea sandwiches, spread a very thin layer of Earth Balance on both pieces of bread (to keep it from getting soggy). Add mock tuna salad and cut into triangles.

Garden Frost Protection

As predicted, I was pretty sore and tired after getting my garden set up on the weekend. And, although I’ve mostly planted vegetables that do ok in cold weather, we’re still hanging out right around freezing at night, so on Sunday, Charlie and I went out to the store and picked up some supplies to help out the little buggers. Last year, I started my garden way too late, and the veggies that prefer colder weather had absolutely no chance. If I end up having to replant some of the ones I started too early, I’m not really gutted about it. I’m still learning!

Anyway, we went to Lowe’s, since there’s one very close to our house. They were selling a “frost blanket” for over $15! Ridiculous. They also didn’t have the hoops pre-made to set it up with. I’ve seen people protect their crops simply with plastic sheeting, so we went with a very inexpensive option – a plastic dropcloth from the paint section. Charlie came to the rescue for the hoops. He bought some bendy wire and promised to set them up that day. (I knew that my arthritic hands just wouldn’t appreciate fussing around with bending wire all afternoon.)

He did an awesome, awesome job! Look how great this came out!

Annnnd it’s a good thing, too, since the rain we were expecting yesterday ended up instead being about a half inch of accumulation of snow! It disappeared within a few hours, but it was not very springlike, and we’re expecting some again tomorrow. Hopefully my little kale will come up soon in the cozy little home Charlie made!

Container Garden: Go!

I am completely exhausted, but my container garden is officially in action!

Today Charlie helped me drill holes in the bottoms of my rubbermaid-type bins for my container gardens (the vibrations from the drill made my sensory issues from fibromyalgia go a little wonky!). I know a lot of people go with the dollar store type of container, or whatever they have lying around the house or can find on freecycle, but I bought new ones for two reasons: 1.) folks who use the kind that the dollar store has report that they have to buy new ones each year because they don’t last, and I don’t want to throw away plastic every year, and 2.) I don’t want to grow organic veggies in bins that maybe had not-foodsafe stuff in them. Since I’ll probably have some kind of container garden going for many years, whether I have a backyard garden or not, I considered it an investment. I was able to get “value packs” of Lowe’s brand rubbermaid bins for reasonable prices, and I picked up (if I recall) four 14-gallon and three 18-gallon.

Last year, I used a Jiffy brand of organic soil, but I couldn’t get that this year, and I was stuck with the MiracleGro Container Organic stuff, so we’ll see how that goes. It was a lot mulchier than the Jiffy mix, so I added some vermiculite to lighten it up.

We made a trellis for one of the containers like I’d said I would in this earlier post about my containers. It’s made out of old chicken wire and some scrap wood. The variety of peas that I’m growing don’t really need a trellis, but I figured it couldn’t hurt. Also, it will help me see how it works and make any modifications before I get my soybeans and burgundy beans going in a few weeks.

So, the peas are started, as well as an entire 14 gallon container dedicated entirely to carrots. Last year, all of my seeds were bought at a Cost Cutters that was closing, and they were 20 packets of seeds for $1. This year, I got just about all of them from the Hudson Valley Seed Library, and I made really careful decisions about which varieties would be best for me. For example, when I chose my carrots, I got the Parisian Carrots that are shorter, fast growing, and well suited for containers. I made sure to add a little extra vermiculite to the bin, since carrots need a very loose soil.

I started some Broccoli in a bin as well as indoors in a tray. I also did this with my Purple Kohlrabi, Lettuce, and Spinach. I’m hoping that by starting some outside immediately and some indoors, I’ll be able to stagger things a bit. I’ll also be re-planting the veggies that can tolerate the heat ok, so that we have them as the summer continues. (Remind me to hold off on the lettuce, though! We have an overabundance of that once June hits.)

I also got a Radish mix for being a member of the seed library, but we don’t eat many radishes in our house, at least not so many that I need to plant them, since we get plenty from our CSA. My mom loves them, though, so I started a small container of them to bring over to her house.

I ended up planting one veggie in the ground and that was the Blue Curly Kale. We had a bunch of compost that we’d dumped into the main garden bed, and the soil just looked so awesome… As I mentioned in my other post, one of the reasons I’m doing a container garden is because we might be moving, but kale is a pretty fast growing plant, and I don’t think we’ll be moving by the time it’s harvestable, so I just went for it and planted that in the ground. Well, although the actual compost looked soft and workable, the ground was still pretty thick and heavy from the cold and the rain, so my muscles are going to be reeeeallly sore tomorrow. I did get two short rows of kale planted, though, and I can’t wait to see how it does. It’s still going to get pretty chilly at night for a while longer, so I might try to set up some sort of ground cover situation tomorrow for the kale. If I need to, the bins are manageable enough that they can be moved into the garage for a bit of extra protection.

That’s all for now… I’ll post more once the little buggers start to come up.

Tea Tasting, Part 1

We had a really fabulous tea tasting last weekend.

I’ve mentioned on here several times that I love tea. It all started when I moved to London a few years ago, and, well, it became much harder to get a really good cup of coffee. I was used to drinking a wonderful latte from NYC shops like Joe. While in London, I occasionally grabbed a bus to Borough Market for a really amazing latte, but other than that, I simply started to drink what was everywhere: tea.

At first, I just drank basic black tea, generally English Breakfast or whatever black tea blend was “on tap.” When I came back to the states, Charlie and I gradually began to explore the world of looseleaf teas, and now, a few years later, we have somehow amassed a collection of over 40 looseleaf teas. Most of them we’ve bought, some of them we’ve gotten as samples, and others, I’ve gotten through tea swaps with other people like me who are slightly ridiculous. It has gotten to the point where when friends join us at our house and we offer them a cup, we feel that we should be able to offer them their favorite kind, but instead, they’re so intimidated by the overflowing cabinet, that they instead say, “I’ll just have whatever you’re having.”

Tea, like wine, can be intimidating, so I decided to host a tea tasting at our house last weekend. I picked a variety of my favorite teas, as well as a few that I’d never tried, and arranged them in an order that made sense to me. As we moved through them, Charlie said, “You made a playlist! This is awesome!”

The two places that I usually order tea from are Tea Gschwender and The Tea Table. Tea Gschwender has some really fine teas that are quite delicious, but a little pricey, and unfortunately, they recently changed their minimum order per variety to be a 100g bag, so you really have to commit to it. For some teas that I know I love, that’s fine, but for others, that’s just too much. Tea Gscwender does have some relatively new retail locations in the USA, though, including two stores in New York, one in Chicago, and one in Ann Arbor, so one of these days I’m going to head over to the store to check it out in person and see what the retail experience is like.

The Tea Table has a great selection, and they let you choose exactly how many ounces of tea you want, which I love. They let you choose up to three free samples per order as well, so there’s really an opportunity to try a lot of new things with this company. While some of the flavors are a little less traditional than I would prefer (you will never ever get me to drink a Caramel Cherry Cheesecake Tea), they have plenty of more traditional teas, a wonderful Masala Chai, and some nice (less out-there) flavored teas.

That’s Bo getting ready for the tasting. He’s got one of the worksheets that I prepared with all the different tea names on it so that people could write down their reactions. I know, I’m such a nerd!

Anyway, our tea tasting went as follows.

We started with white tea, the mildest of teas. We had Drum Mountain White Cloud. After that, we moved to green teas, where we tried a flowery Formosa Jasmine. Next was Lavender Butterfly, a tea that is wonderful with a bit of creamed honey stirred into it. We finished the green teas with Japan Genmaicha, which some remarked had an almost malty taste to it.

The black teas were nothing new to me, as I just wanted to share my favorites here, black tea still being what I drink the most frequently. We started with Blood Orange Black Tea, something I’d gotten a sample of, loved, and ordered more of.

We moved to Earl Grey No. 69, a tea heady with bergamot and a great choice when using Earl Grey for cooking (like in these tea cakes or this oatmeal). We went to an Irish Breakfast black tea blend called O’Sullivan’s Favorite , which, in my opinion, is best served with a bit of fresh cream. Black Currant is another English flavor I grew to love when I was there, and I prefer the Tea Gschwender version to The Tea Table kind. We used that to branch from the black teas to the fruitier herbals I’d selected.

We started the herbals with a Lemongrass Blend that I picked up in the bulk section of Wegman’s. I’ve been told that Weg’s carries Rishi in their bulk bins, but I haven’t seen this one on their website, so not sure completely of the origin. Finally, we tried Casablanca, which smelled very strong but mostly tasted like strawberries, and Lady Hannah’s Whole Fruit was a bit more floral.

(I hope all those links work!) I’ll post pictures of the party soon, as well as some delicious food recipes. Our menu was pretty awesome.

We made the Carrot Coconut Scones from Baked Explorations, as well as Honey Whisky Cakes from Scottish Teatime Recipes (both with a few adaptations, such as adding a bit more whisky in the second recipe).

For tea sandwiches, we had an awesome (and strangely realistic) mock tuna, a chutney and cheddar, and of course, cucumber sandwiches. I also made a quiche of spinach, portabello, and broccoli that was very similar to this vegetable tart. In other words, we drank tea and we feasted. It was great. Special thanks to Kira, Traczie with a Z, and Bo for being Kitchen Assistants.

Recipes and photos to follow soon.

Disclaimer: I’m not affiliated with any of the tea companies mentioned, and I haven’t gotten any perks for writing about them. I’m just an actual consumer of the products.