Month: August 2019

Posted in Baked goods, Baking, Bread, breakfast, Brunch, Cake, Uncategorized

Our Favorite Pound Cake

Posted on by lmc

I’ve had this recipe in my file for many years. This is absolutely a “no fail”, simplistic batter that turns out the perfect pound cake every time. While I usually add almond extract to the recipe, using lemon, anise, or rum extract will all work out great, as well. Actually, any extract will do…. Simply delicious!

Our Favorite Pound Cake

1/2 cup butter

1 cup white sugar

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon almond extract

2/3 cup water

1 (8 ounce) container sour cream

1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix

1 cup all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a Bundt pan, set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, stir in the vanilla and almond extract. Beat in water and sour cream. Carefully, add and beat in the cake mix and flour. Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake in the preheated oven for 60 to 70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.

Posted in Food, Gardening

Harvesting Honey

Posted on by lmc

Today we had the pleasure of experiencing our first honey harvest. Our bees have been busy visiting fields of clover and Queen Anne’s Lace over the past several weeks. After watching hours of video focused on harvesting honey and rendering beeswax, we finally took a leap of faith and carefully extracted the liquid gold produced by our very own bees.

Here’s a step by step look at the process:

We carefully swept the bees off of the short, capped honey frames to prepare for extraction.

We set up the extractor and a screened sieve to remove the honey and filter out the wax and other unwanted items. A clean and organized area is imperative. We had buckets of soapy water with sanitizer and tarped surfaces in the extraction area.

After the extractor does its work (we have a hand crank version), the gate can be opened to pour unfiltered honey into a clean, food-safe bucket. The sieve and filter will take out the impurities.

We cleaned and sanitized our honey containers prior to setting up our bottling station.

The filtered honey is ready for bottling. We used 12 and 16 ounce jars. We wanted to try a mixture of plastic and glass jars.

We were able to bottle 12- 12 ounce, 12- 16 ounce, and 2- 4 ounce jars. What a delight to get so much honey from just 8 short frames.

I order a few different labels from Amazon to finish off the process. I think I’ll order a set of more personally printed labels for next year.

Now, it’s time to render the filtered wax to make our own beeswax blocks for future projects.

Posted in Baked goods, Baking, Bread, breakfast

Fresh Blueberry and Cream Cheese Breakfast Braid

Posted on by lmc

Nearly every Saturday, I peer into my over crowded refrigerator to see what left-over ingredients I can pull together to make a few quick weekend meals. This past Saturday, I wanted to make a warm coffee cake for the breakfast table. As I poked around the fridge and rummaged through various containers, I found all the ingredients needed to make this delicious, fruit-filled braid. If you’re looking for a quick baked treat, this is the one for you.

Fresh Blueberry and Cream Cheese Breakfast Braid

1 package crescent dough sheet

1 pint blueberries

8 ounces package of cream cheese, softened

¼ cup plus 1 teaspoon sugar

Zest of 1 lemon

1 tablespoon flour

2 teaspoons lemon juice

¼ cup milk

¼ teaspoon almond extract

½ cup powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. On a slightly floured surface, carefully roll out the crescent dough into a thin, rectangular sheet. In a medium bowl, combine the cream cheese and 1/4 cup of granulated sugar until smooth and creamy.

Spread the cream cheese mixture onto the center of the crescent roll sheet. Leaving about an inch and a half of dough on either side of the mixture. In a separate bowl, toss the blueberries with the tablespoon of flour, lemon zest, and teaspoon of sugar. Carefully spread the blueberries over the cream cheese mixture.

To prepare the dough, make diagonal cuts into the dough from the exterior and cut about 1 ½” into the center on the long ends of the dough. Make roughly 8-10 cuts on each side. Pull the strips of dough over the top the blueberries, alternating sides. Transfer to a cookie sheet. Bake for about 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown.

While it is cooling, whisk together milk, almond extract, and powdered sugar to create a glaze.

When the blueberry braid has slightly cooled, drizzle the glaze over the top and serve.