A New Direction

Since the discovery of googlepages, the existence of this blog seemed unnecessary. But a comment in a previous blog has inspired a new direction for my blog. As might be obvious to you faithful bloggers out there, I'm now going to post my adventures in baking and tea. Yes, yes. I know. There are about a bazillion (the physicist in me points out that a more accurate number is maybe hundreds of thousands... anyways), about a bazillion blogs about various adventures in baking. I probably can't claim to be very original in my love for both baking and tea, either. But nevertheless, since I always take pictures of the stuff I bake, I might as well let you see them and drool (or snicker and think 'I can do better than that!').
So here it is, googlepages for business, blog for fun...

Even though the Salt Lake City Downtown Farmers Market has been open since 14 June, I wasn't able to go until last week. It's really the most amazing farmers market I've ever been to. Not that I've been to tons, but believe me, it's big. According to their website (http://www.downtownslc.org/events/farmersmarket/farmersmarketinfo.htm) there are over 80 farmers, and near 100 crafters and artists. There is a family that sells berries, and in particular, red currants. If you've never had a currant, they're fabulous. Across the pond they are the flavor. Instead of grape Skittles, you get black currant Skittles. I don't know why they haven't caught on over here. So, the woman selling them gave me a recipe for currant pie. The recipe had more of crumble topping, but I can't resist a traditional lattice, so I did that instead. Currants are pretty sour, so you have to put a considerable amount of sugar in the filling. We also had homemade vanilla icecream to help, and it was pretty good. It also makes for a very pretty pie - red currants are just such a pretty fruit!
Tomorrow we're having a little birthday party for a coworker. I, of course, volunteered to make the cake. (They said they'd buy a cake - what a silly idea.) My coworker is in his 50's, and very male. So my usual habit of making "pretty" cakes didn't seem like the right approach. I figured chocolate is always a good plan, but what else? For all that I love fancy baked goods, at heart I love the simple, traditional stuff. Chocolate cake with vanilla butter cream - no filling, no nuthin', that's my favorite. But that's kindof boring. So I figured I'd go with a chocolate on chocolate, intense, but not girly. So in the end, I did a dense chocolate cake with cream cheese filling and light chocolate buttercream, and white chocolate shavings. Exciting without having to pull out the cake decorating tips and royal icing flowers. I was only going to make the one cake, but my family loudly protested, so I made them one, too. It came out like an Orea, my family said. Not exactly my intentions, but why not! A yummy, uncomplicated cake.
PS, in case you're wondering, the Art Market Afternoon Tea went perfectly. I had about 25 people sit down for tea. Not too few, not too many. I had wonderful help from my mom and my sister, so besides being a successful day, it was pretty fun, too. Kindof makes my desk job seem lame. ;)