Renewing a chair

Nine staples where three might do.

A bowl full of mental illness

      Lately, in my meantime, in my sparetime, I’ve been tearing down an old chair, pulling out millions of staples, ripping off rotten fabric, dreaming of the bright, happy new look I will give it. My mom has a small shop where she has renewed old, stinky couches and dirty easy chairs for years. She tells me you can know a lot about a person by the way a piece was put together. Each time we’ve talked lately, I’ve complained - nay, ranted - about the hundreds of unnecessary staples I had to individually pry out. She says, yes, that is a person who is…, that is…, I forget the word...  I say, obsessive-compulsive? YES! she replies.  

     Renewal can be a lengthy, arduous process where we must address our own imperfections. 

Stripped, ready for renewal

My cake is slipping

Lemon Curd Layer Cake. I forgot to the fresh lemon slices on top

 Today I finished making a lemon curd layer cake. I had promised a  celebration birthday cake for Anita and Marsena, but then life got complicated and I didn’t get around to it until this week. This recipe is complicated, too. For me, anyway. But if you do it step by step the resulting cake is memorable. Four days ago I made the required six cups of lemon curd which is so good you have to hide it from yourself. Using fresh farm eggs makes the curd bright as oxeye daisies. Yesterday I made the three cake layers. Today I whipped the cream, blended in some of the curd and topped each level with curd followed by cream frosting. The final layer is covered in cream frosting, the remaining curd is spread on the top and then rest of the whipped cream is piped around the edges. So beautiful.

Maybe because it was too hot in the house, or perhaps it is just me, but the cake is sitting in the refrigerator slipping its top. Oh, and another thing, my layers came out of the oven tall and beautiful and promptly fell. It will still taste marvelous.

Beloved, my projects, my life is never quite perfect.  

I’m posting the recipe in case anyone else is in love with lemon deserts. Just know – you really need to start this a day in advance because the curd needs to cool and the frosting needs to set up for 3-4 hours. From Bon Appetite magazine…

Lemon Curd Layer Cake

LEMON CURD

2 1/3 c. sugar

2 tsp cornstarch

1 c. fresh lemon juice

4 large eggs

4 large egg yolks (save whites for cake)

¾ c. (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter cut in pieces

FROSTING

¾ c. powdered sugar

2 c. whipping cream

CAKE

1 ½ c. cake flour

1 ½ c. sugar

2 ½ tsp baking powder

¾ tsp salt

4 large egg yolks

¼ c vegetable oil

¼ c. orange juice

1 ½ tsp grated lemon peel

8 large egg whites

¼ tsp cram of tartar

Lemon slices, halved, patted dry. ( I forgot them!)

FOR LEMON CURD: Combine 2 1/3 c. sugar and cornstarch in heavy medium pan. Gradually whisk in fresh lemon juice. Whisk in eggs and yolks; add butter. Whisk over medium heat until curd thickens and boils, abut 12 min. Pour into container or jars, cover refrigerate. Can be made 1 week ahead.

FOR FROSTING: Beat powdered sugar and 1 ¼ c. curd in large bowl just until blended. Beat cream in separate bowl until firm peaks form. Fold cream into curd mixture in 3 additions. Chill until firm, at least 4 hours.

FOR CAKE: Oven 350 degrees. Butter and flour three 9 inch cake pans. Line with parchment paper. Whisk dry ingredients – flour, sugar, salt, b. powder. Add 4 yolks, oil, orange juice, lemon peel and ¾ c. curd. (Don’t beat it quite yet because you need to use mixer to beat egg whites.) In another large bowl combine egg whites and cream of tartar. Beat whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add remaining cup of sugar, beating until stiff. Using same beaters, beat yolk mix until smooth. Fold whites into yolk mixture in three additions. Divide batter into the three pans. Bake about 25 min. or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan 15 min. Turn onto racks, peel off parchment. Cool completely.

Spoon 1 c. frosting into pastry bag fitted with plain round tip. Refrigerate while you put the rest together. Place 1 layer on cake plate. Spread top with 1/3 c. curd and 1 c. frosting. Do same with the next. Top with third layer and spread remaining frosting over top and sides. Spread remaining curd on the top leaving a ¾ inch border around. Pipe little mounds of chilled bagged frosting around edge. Place lemon slices between mounds. Can be made a day ahead. 

Loser's Coffee Cake

The weekend before last I used the sunny weather as an excuse to make a berry pie which was good, but not perfect. This past weekend I woke to darkness, the sky thickened by fog as snow slowly melted. It began raining gloom, exposing more dirt and dog doo along our sidewalk. It’s kind of disgusting to walk your dog, leash in one hand and loaded bag swinging in the other. Most owners responsibly pick up, and seriously, I don’t watch them, you know. But this one guy,  owner of a big ruffy dog, without a bag, annoyed me a little when he paused right in front of the kitchen window as I was doing dishes. No way to pick that up and too loose to kick onto the street. He needed a giant leaf bag bag, but I grabbed what was handy and ran out to offer it. I’m glad I curtailed my spleen because he was very shame-faced and kind of sweet. Sometimes it’s embarrassing to be imperfect. Big aside.

Once again, I was using the weather as an excuse to bake something. Why should I do that? It really doesn’t matter what the weather is. It’s March. We’re all mentally ill from lack of sun. Just watch, next I’ll be complaining about how hot it is. But while it’s still chilly and with Easter coming, it’s time to make the one coffee cake I’ll make all season. The one that has a crunchy cinnamon-y wave through the middle of a moist sweet inside and crispy golden crust outside.

I found a recipe on the web called Loser’s Coffee Cake. Not because the recipe is a loser, they said, but if you are. It was acclaimed as super-easy and so good, a no-fail. I have an affinity for losers whether we’re talking about the kitchen or figuring out where the volume button is in iTunes. The concept attracts me. So I made it.

When I could handle it without getting third degree burns we ate a piece. And someone ate another, not me. I was thinking: this IS a loser recipe. It’s not that good. But why would that be? As I remembered, the old recipe, buried somewhere in my archives, had all the same ingredients. Excepting chocolate chips. I left them out because coffee cake should not have them. It’s wrong. It had to be something else, not the chocolate. So I dug out the old recipe from Nancy Fyke to compare. The difference was: twice as much sugar, a little more fat, and twice the amount of cinnamon filling and topping.

So. If you’re going to make a coffee cake, and it comes once a year, perhaps on Christmas or Easter morning, then don’t skimp on this, just go for it. I mean. It really DOES make a difference.

Here’s the winner’s recipe – No more difficult than the “Loser’s” and way, WAY better.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

1 c. butter softened

2 c. sugar

2 c. flour

2 eggs

1 c. (8 ounces) sour cream

1 t. baking powder

1 t. vanilla

½ t. salt

Cream butter, sugar and vanilla beating until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Add half the dry ingredients and stir with a spoon until blended. Add sour cream, blend with spoon. Add remaining dry ingredients. Do same thing. Don’t over stir.

Cinnamon mixture:

1/2 c. sugar

1/3 c. brown sugar

2 T (tablespoons) cinnamon

1/2 c. chopped almonds or other nuts

Combine all ingredients in small bowl.

Sprinkle 1/3 of the cinnamon mixture in bottom of a well-greased, floured Bundt pan (you can use a 9x13 cake pan, but then skip putting the cinnamon mixture on the bottom and add to middle and top only). Spoon in half the batter. Sprinkle with another third of the mixture. Add remaining batter. Top with final third of cinnamon mixture. Bake at 350 degrees for 60 -75 minutes. Cool 1 hour before removing from pan. (Otherwise it comes out in chunks. I know from another of my loser experiences. Still tastes good but looks like a squirrel dug it up.) Also. This might look like any old boring coffee cake, but it is fantastic.

A Beaver’s miscalculation

 

My grandfather, Pete Frolander, was a carpenter, who built wooden boats, log cabins, and the kind of furniture you might find today in faux-rustic condos. With a dusting of sawdust on his cap and a pencil behind his ear, he smelled good to me – like pine trees and lake water. While he worked and I was a little girl underfoot and not interested in dolls, he allowed me to hammer nails into scrap lumber. When I was done he proudly displayed them in a corner of his shop the same way I now tape my grandchildren’s colored works of art on my refrigerator. My hours of pounding, bending nails, dinging up the board, no rhythm or pattern – just spikey works of juvenile miscalculation and effort.

I’m not sure why finding a large poplar tree felled toward the shore of Pike Fish Lake in Superior National Forest reminded me of him. Until I walked over to it, I assumed the wind had taken it down. As I examined it, I had a smack-the-forehead moment. There were incisor marks on the stump and piles of chips all around it. This was the work of a beaver. After looking at it I realized this rodent woodcutter had neglected to stand back and see that a picnic table was going to be very much in the way of his project. Still, I was impressed; it was almost a work of art.

I guess that’s when I thought of Grandpa who often said “Measure twice cut once.” There’ve been countless times when I thought I had everything measured and under control and pressed send or pulled the trigger only to learn, no, it wasn’t quite right. It all landed on the picnic table not in the water. But he also said to be a good carpenter you can’t be a perfectionist. You always need to be fudging, repurposing, working the angles, and saving this or that up as extra for another day. No longer being a child did not necessarily reduced the number of mistakes I made, which could be a downer until, and even to this day, I go ahead and remind myself that most of them are not cause for panic and they might even have an upside such as an increase in patience with both myself and my environment. More on this later. (I’ve been on vacation.)

"Almost Perfect"

Last Friday Comment Magazine posted my column on perfectionism in the kitchen. As you know, I have a lot to say about that. If you're a perfect person, don't bother.