use real butter

Today was one of those non-stop days from the moment I woke at 5:30 am up to now. I am feeling great in large part due to my dosage of steroids (long story, but it’s to treat the side effects of a side effect from one of my chemo drugs). It’s good that I started the steroids now because I have so much to get done this week and… I’m getting most of it done!

This morning we ventured up to Lake Isabelle - a short hike under normal circumstances except the road to the trailhead is partially closed and the trail is 60% under snow still. A great time to see the lake which takes on a different personality every few weeks when the seasonal conditions change so quickly. She’s beautiful any time of year. Here are some of the favorites, but you can always hop over to the photo blog for the rest.

on the way to the lake

just over the rise

still snowy lake isabelle at 10,868 feet

bred for swimming in icy waters

I felt so strong and completely energized. In my current state of health, I know not to let these moments go to waste. It’s a frenzy of activity because we have house guests this weekend, are hosting a barbecue as well, and the timing of all of the local wildflowers and snow pack in the high country will not wait until next week for photo shoots. I’m also training for a few goals I have this summer - so everything is *now* and I am loving it.

visitor in our yard

A few weeks ago, I had an excess of raspberries and looked about one morning for a nice way to use them up. I am not a huge fan of breakfast foods, particularly the sweet kind. [Oh, but I’ll eat bacon any time, any place.] About once a year I get a hankering for pancakes and whip up a batch to remind myself why I only make them once a year. Jeremy is decidedly indifferent to pancakes.

start with eggs and buttermilk

I wandered into the kitchen and began a search for pancake recipes on the laptop. I immediately honed in on a recipe from a familiar blog: Elise’s Simply Recipes’ Blueberry Buttermilk Pancakes. I love Elise and I trust her recipes. The woman has never failed me. So instead of blueberry buttermilk pancakes, I made raspberry buttermilk pancakes.

stirring in the dry ingredients

Jeremy *loved* these pancakes. I can’t tell you how surprised I was because he was a picky eater when I met him over 15 years ago. While he has accepted and embraced several foods in that time, he has rarely turned 180 on a food like this before. Good on ya, Elise.

fold in the pretty raspberries

My batter wound up a little thick and the pancakes were puffy and taller than most pancakes. It could be an elevation issue. Admittedly, I’ve never been a pancake expert.

frying in the pan

The second time around (yeah, I started getting requests for this on weekends) I added more milk and reduced the leavenings. Less puffy, more spread - but they still tasted the same. And when I say they tasted the same, I mean they still tasted fan-freaking-tastic.

top with fresh berries and your choice of sugar delivery

Raspberry Buttermilk Pancakes
modified from Blueberry Buttermilk Pancakes at Simply Recipes

2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder [1/4 tsp at 8500 feet]
1/2 tsp baking soda [1/4 tsp at 8500 feet]
2 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 cup milk [1 1/3 cup at 8500]
3 tbsp butter, melted
1 cup raspberries

Combine flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in a bowl and mix well. Mix eggs, buttermilk, and milk in another bowl. Combine the wet and dry mixes until just lumpy. Pour in butter and stir well. Fold in raspberries. Heat a little oil or butter in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Pour a scoop of batter onto the pan when the oil is hot. Spread to desired size (I like mine smallish - around 4 inches in diameter, but do what you want). When bubbles appear on the top of the pancake, flip to cook the other side (this takes Elise about 2-3 minutes, but took me upwards of 4 minutes). Remove the pancake from the pan when the bottom is golden. Serve hot or let the pancakes cool and refrigerate them to be toasted later.

Sure, that Spring Equinox might be right on the horizon - so close that you can practically reach out and smack it - but that’s not what I’m thinking about when an upslope storm hits my hood.

you know what this means, kids

It was really lovely skiing Monday. Freshies! And if I want to catch me some “almost spring” I can head down to Boulder, which I did today to enjoy happy hour with one of my buds who just returned from 2 months of field work in Africa. So nice to catch up. So nice to eat solid food!

peel and eat shrimpies

mmmm, gruyère fondue

The trees on Pearl Street are sprouting buds and it won’t be long before that lovely yellow-green of tender leaves begins to emerge like thousands of glowing green jewels in the sunlight. I get to straddle two seasons and I dig it!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a sweet recipe and I remembered that I had made a sour cream coffee cake for the chemo nurses for my last treatment. They all loved it and it’s no surprise since this cake is one of those goto recipes for me. I think I gravitate toward recipes with sour cream because of the moist crumb and also because they tend not to crap out on me at elevation in the oven. Still working out that whole altitude adjustment issue with my baking, but I’m slowly making progress.

adding eggs to the creamed butter and sugar

sour cream for outstanding texture

The cake batter is pretty standard: butter, sugar, eggs, sour cream, flour, leavening. It doesn’t pour so much as plop into the pan, so you’ll have to do some spreading.

spread half of the batter around

The streusel topping is easiest to mix with a *clean* hand although you’re welcome to use a pastry cutter or fork if you don’t like to actually touch food.

streusel ingredients

after mixing

Once you spread half of the batter into a greased and floured pan, sprinkle three-quarters of the streusel mix over the batter, then spread the rest of the batter over top.

sprinkle the rest of the topping on the cake

cooling

Of course, once I had baked the bundt, I couldn’t shoot a cross section slice because I didn’t want to take a “cut” cake to the nurses. So I made a second one in my flat pan to carve a piece out and made Jeremy eat the whole damn thing.

great with coffee, tea, or milk

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

streusel topping:
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp flour
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp butter, softened

cake:
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup sugar
1 cup sour cream
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 350F. Mix the streusel ingredients well and set aside. Cake: Cream butter and sugar together. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Mix in sour cream. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and add to the wet mix. Beat until just combined. Spread half of the batter into a greased and floured pan. Sprinkle 3/4 of the streusel mix over the batter and then pour the rest of the batter into the pan. Top the cake with the remaining streusel. Bake at 350F for 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean or with moist crumbs.

I trust everyone had a merry Christmas and/or federal holiday! I want to thank those of you who bid on my raffle prize as well as all of the other fabulous raffle prizes at Menu for Hope IV this year. What an awesome turnout. MfH raised 50% more than last year’s effort - over $90,000! That’s a whole lotta raffle tickets, kids!

Ever since I found out that my Aussie friends have lovely cold seafood picnics on the beach for Christmas, I have steadily rejected the traditional roasted animal - be it of feathered or four-legged persuasion - in favor of those animals who gurgle and bubble in the sea. Now *that* is a treat to me. I grew up on the water and spent far too much time in it or at its edge during my youth. This year we had lobster bisque, crawdad phyllo triangles (crawdads = crayfish = yabbies), shrimp cocktail, and king crab legs for our Christmas “meal”. The meal was neither lunch nor dinner, but a long drawn out noshing session. We didn’t have it in us to eat dessert. Who needs dessert after all of those lovely critters?

oh you little beauty

I’ll post the crawdad phyllo triangles later, because if you are going to try a recipe, the one I have for you today is a hands down winner. This was one of my most reliable desserts when I lived at sea-level. I had all but forgotten about it after moving to the mountains because various bundt and pound cakes behaved so abominably that those recipes were on indefinite hiatus. For some reason, while racking my brain for a new cake to take to the neighbors, I was reunited with this beloved tea cake - and I’m so glad!

raspberries and almond pair well here

The instructions in the recipe threw me for a loop the first time I ever made this cake. Renny Darling nonchalantly says to mix the first seven ingredients together. Well… if you buy the almond paste that I buy (because it’s the only one I can find), then it ain’t mixing with anything. No, what you will want to do to save yourself some cursing and angry stickiness is to pulse the almond paste and the sugar together in a food processor first. Then you can proceed per her instructions.

blissful cake-making: give the almond paste a whirl with the sugar first

now mix everything together

The biggest concern for me is that cakes or cookies will rise too fast in this thin air. They rise too fast and then collapse - it’s like bad sex. I tinkered with the amount of baking powder, reducing it considerably for my elevation. However, if you are baking at sea-level, the recipe works perfectly.

folding in the raspberries

The baking time guidelines are on the nose for a single batch. I typically make a double batch because the recipe makes for a short (but cute) bundt cake. A double ends up baking for an hour and 5 minutes. Don’t let the color of the cake top fool you. It will be pale, but the cake that touches the pan will be browning up nicely. Use the toothpick test: moist crumbs okay, gooey needs more time.

pleasing to the eyes, nose, and tastebuds

The crumb of this cake is on the dense side, but the flavors of almond and raspberry are light in contrast. A slice is perfect with a cup of tea or coffee. You can serve this as a breakfast cake, for afternoon tea, or even as a dessert after dinner. I omit the almonds in the glaze, and if I’m not serving the whole cake, then I only glaze each slice, but do whatever floats your boat. It’s an easy and delicious bite of happiness.

raspberry almond tea cake

Royal Raspberry and Almond Cake with Toasted Almond Glaze
from Easiest and Best Coffee Cakes and Quick Breads by Renny Darling

1/2 cup almond paste
1/3 cup oil
1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tsp almond extract
2 cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder (3/4 tsp for 8500 feet elevation)
3/4 cup raspberries

toasted almond glaze
1 tbsp cream
1/4 tsp almond extract
3/4 cup sifted powdered sugar
3 tablespoons finely chopped toasted almonds

Preheat oven to 325F. *Jen’s note: Pulse the almond paste and sugar together in a food processor until fine grained and mixed. Combine the first seven ingredients together until blended. Add flour and baking powder and stir until dry ingredients are just moistened. Gently fold in the raspberries. Place batter into a greased 10-inch tube pan (or bundt) and bake for 45 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. [For a double batch, bake for about 1 hour and 5 minutes]. Allow to cool in pan. To make the toasted almond glaze, stir together all of the ingredients until blended. When cake is cool, remove from pan and drizzle top with toasted almond glaze. Serves 8 to 10.