The Creation of the "Let Them Eat Cake" Logo

This is a poster of the logo now available in my Esty store

Lindsey Schortz of Let Them Eat Cake Bakers in lovely Belfast, Maine really liked the looks of my "Just Call Me Cupcake" design below and wondered if we could use the cupcake and the retro style of the design to create a nice logo for her which would then be translated into a business card, Facebook masthead, Cafe Press store design and general all around design element to market her beautiful baked goods. Lindsey is famous for brownies, shortbread and wonderful coffee cakes plus so much more, she uses all natural ingredients - organic or sourced locally wherever possible and practical. 

This design is available in my Cafe Press store

 So off I went to my drawing board and came up with an idea Lindsey liked immediately.....thank you Lindsey!

...and the tracing and painting began. I just love creating type by hand....it soothes my fevered brow...somewhat akin to quiet meditation.

The Facebook page masthead

Some fun products from the Let Them Eat Cake Bakers Cafe Press store...and below
a close up of that design....

Here's a link to Lindsey's website  (designed by our own beloved Thierry Bonneville ) where you can order her divine products which are also available at the Belfast Coop and Glendarragh Lavender Shop, Camden Maine...there they have the most delicious lavender shortbread made by Lindsey with their own lavender.
Now let's be off and eat some cake...no really!!

A Plethora of Pink and Red Poppy Pictures

Now isn't this how the hats at the Royal Wedding should have looked? The pink poppies, for which I have waited quite the number of years to bloom, are THE perfect pink, no really they are...in person they have an inner glow that makes them

almost neon (in a good way) and they are a little more saturated and a little more perfect...ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!
I am so enamoured of some of these photographs that I will have them available as archival prints in my Etsy store sometime this week.

Rhubarb and raisin squares baked in a circle and cut into triangles...

Oh yeh...this is a good one based on an old fashioned British recipe of raisin squares....definitely try this if you like both rhubarb and raisins...what a wonderful combination...I am sure you can do this with all raisin...I'd say two cups if you go that way...or another fruit than rhubarb like apricots (fresh of course!!)

First of all avail yourself of the following delightful ingredients:

1lb rhubarb cut into small pieces

1 packed cup/6oz of raisins or white raisin or currants or whatever dried fruit you like but raisins were WONDERFUL

1 cup/7.5oz sugar

1 large egg

2 tablespoons flour

1 tablespoon grated lemon rind...this REALLY adds to the flavour of this dessert

so don't leave it out.

A few hours before you want to bake the 'squares' mix the flour with the beaten egg until smooth and then mix all above ingredients together until well mixed...allow to marinate at room temperature.

Yum...flavours marinating and improving in deliciousness by the minute....

The 'squares' ready to have their second top layer of pastry added

Piecrust...Pate Brisee by Martha

Pre-heat oven to 375F

2 1/2 cups/10ozs of white flour

4 tablespoons sugar

2 sticks (8ozs) butter I always use salted, VERY cold

1/4 to 1/2 cup ice cold water

1 whisked egg white

METHOD:

1. Sift the flour

2. Grate the butter into the flour.

3. Gently work butter into flour until it resembles coarse meal.

4. Add some of the water and test to see if it comes together, if not keep adding water until the

dough will squush into a non-sticky ball.

5. Put into the fridge to rest for at least one hour.

6. Take the pastry out of the fridge, allow to warm a very little, separate into two even sized balls,

roll out 2 nice circles.

8. Then line a 9" tart pie with one circle, brush evenly with the egg white and bob into the oven for about 10 minutes to 'set' the surface...take out and allow to cool for about 20 minutes.

9. Strew the luscious rhubarb and raisin mix over the somewhat baked bottom crust...don't worry it might be quite wet...go ahead...put it all in there and even it out as above.

10. Cover with the second disk of pastry...sprinkle with some sugar as below.

 10. Bob back into the oven and bake for a goodly 55 minutes until bubbling and golden brown as below...allow to cool completely before cutting and eating...this is another dessert that really improves with a couple of days maturity...trust me!

Enjoy using up the last of this season's rhubarb with this wonderful 'pudding' 

Bubbling and golden brown fresh from the oven...wait til I'm cold before you cut me!!

Visions of a picture perfect day in Maine...ahhhhh!!!

We wait sooo long and work so hard for these pristine days in Maine and yea today finally we have one....Sunday June 5th 2011 is PERFECT and how lucky am I that I can walk out my front or back door and take these photographs of the glory that is today! 

I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I do when I sit by the humming wood stove on a wild and wooly winter's day and dream of THIS day when the air is balmy, the birds are singing, the bees are buzzing, the butterflies are fluttering, the poppies are popping and I am in heaven. Ahhhhhh....

Pretty poppies all in a row...

The first iris of the season....

Hope it is as beautiful today where you are as it is here in Maine on Lemonade Day and if you're in Blighty enjoy your community street party lunches partially funded by lottery money!!

Chocolate Biscuit Cake a la Prince William's Groom Cake....and it's no bake!!

Here is a picture of the finished cake...if you like fudgey, chocolate, flourless cakes then this is the cake for you but with an added crunch of biscuits/cookies. Prince William choose this as his Groom cake for the recent Royal Wedding and the Queen herself is said to be very fond of it and is quite miffed if any slices are missing so the staff has to keep leftovers under lock and key.

First of all you should either buy the McVities Rich Tea Biscuits the cake calls for although I myself prefer  McVities Digestives  - graham crackers will work also and even better yet shortbread - there's a recipe for Earl Grey shortbread on this blog - you'll have to do a search in the box in the column on your right as I can't do a link to a post within this blog - just leave out the tea in that recipe - I baked the biscuits/cookies myself....here's the recipe for Digestive Biscuits:

Biscuits and a glass of milk anyone?

DIGESTIVE BISCUITS:

6oz/3/4 cup 100% wholemeal flour

1 1/2oz/1/2 cup medium oatmeal (I could only find normal size so I whirled it in the coffee grinder for a little bit...that worked)

1/2 teaspoon salt

3oz/3/4 stick butter

2oz/1/4 cup brown sugar

3 tablespoons of milk

1. Mix all dry ingredients together.

2. Rub in the butter...

3. Stir in the milk until the dough comes together.

4. Roll out fairly thin on a lightly floured surface.

5. Cut into 3" rounds

6. Bake at 350F until nicely browned...allow to cool.

I have a terrible tendency to overbake my biscuits/cookies so do err on the side of them being lighter rather than darker - mine were a little too dark and therefore a little too hard.

And now for the cake...so easy!!

1 egg whisked

4oz/1 stick butter salted

1 tablespoon sugar

6oz plain/semi sweet chocolate

1 tablespoon of Golden Syrup if you have it otherwise use honey which I did

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

2oz/1/2 cup chopped walnuts

8oz digestive biscuits or rich tea if you are using them.

1. Melt 4oz of the chocolate, butter and whisked egg in the top of a double boiler until hot and well blended.

2. Add crushed biscuits, walnuts, sugar, cocoa powder and honey gently until well blended.

3 Line a 7" cake tin with greaseproof paper on the bottom and sides and pour in the choccy mixture...smooth the top and....should look like that below only smoother.

The 'cake' poured into the pan and sitting atop a copy of a new idea I am working on which will be revealed in the next post.

Allow to cool and set in the fridge for at least 3 hours. Remove from the pan and take off the paper, set on a cooling rack.

Melt the remaining 2oz of chocolate and pour over the cake as below...there's little Eleanor in the background observing the goings on! No chocolate for you...it's bad for doggies!!

I think perhaps I over baked my biscuits, which I have a tendency to do with biscuits, and they were little hard for this cake as it was difficult to cut and doesn't look as professional as some of the other versions of this cake I have seen so maybe you should invest the time in procuring yourself some Rich Tea biscuits to make your cake look like this!!

This is a 'cake' that tastes better the longer you wait before eating it  - the longer you wait the softer the biscuits/cookies get which is nice!

I have to be completely honest I have been looking forward to this cake for ever so long but either because I didn't do a good job on the Digestives OR because I am not that big a fan of chocolate (it's true!!) I just wasn't that thrilled with it...glad it didn't take too much effort. The next recipe coming along is FANTASTIC and I was thrilled with the results so do check back or look in the right hand column of this blog and sign up for the posts by e-mail which means each time I post you will get an e-mail that links right to the blog...no checking back anymore....yea!!!

The rain in Maine....

When the humid shadows hover
Over all the starry spheres,
And the melancholy darkness
Gently weeps in rainy tears,
What a joy to press the pillow
Of a cottage-chamber bed,
And to listen to the patter
Of the soft rain overhead!

Every tinkle on the shingles
Has an echo in the heart;
And a thousand dreamy fancies
Into busy being start,
And a thousand recollections
Weave their bright hues into woof,
As I listen to the patter
Of the rain upon the roof. 

                                        First 2 stanzas of "The Rain Upon the Roof"

by American poet Coates Kinney

FYI "woof" here means weft as in the warp and weft of a fabric

 As I look out the window the world is GREEN, the skies are grey, the rain is falling and the mist is rising. Maine is enveloped in a cloud of dank and drear.....cozy for a few days but please don't let there be a repeat of the summer of 2009 where we had, and I kid you NOT, 7 straight weeks of rain, rain, rain. 

It does look pretty on the lupine leaves but all the plants are bowed low and are patiently waiting for the sun which is not due 'til this coming weekend.

Pure beeswax, lavender buds and lovely ribbon

Have you ever smelled pure beeswax? It is a beautiful and cozy aroma and is such a lovely warm colour too. Our good friends Magy and Clay owners of Green Hive Honey Farm of Camden, Maine were wondering what to do with all their beeswax and James and I came up with the idea of custom sculpted beeswax tablets scented with lavender oil and scattered with Maine lavender buds.

 The first step required  James sculpting a special mold for the beeswax...as you can see he included a beautiful big bee and one of Green Hives' iconic flowers on a background of comb hexagons - nice job James!

Then we sourced some lovely, soft lavender coloured ribbon to hang the tablet by (don't hang it anywhere hot or in a window that gets too much sun...it will melt!!) and I created the custom packaging and a nice new label for "bee fragrant"

Here is the first tablet wrapped and ready to go in Green Hive Honey's favourite pink tissue paper...you know you want one...you can order from this page of the website....it makes an awfully nice gift from Maine made by Maine bees from a Maine company sculpted by a Maine artist with packaging and label designed by a Maine designer...YEA!!

Images from Maine on a beautiful Earth Day 2011!!

I love these double daffs and have no idea where they came from...
they smell just lovely!!

Happy Daffs standing proud against the bright blue sky

Rhubarb, rhubarb what shall I make with thee...as you can see my rhubarb is not very far along today, it'll be a while before I can do a rhubarb post!!

Lots of daffs ready to bloom in the "Enchanted Forest" by the barn

Let them eat PIECAKE on April 29th!

Here is a pencil sketch I recently did for a very good client of mine...we ended up going in a different direction than this and I suddenly realized this would be a good image for this particular post!! FYI I usually do all my lettering by hand but as this was a quickie for this post I did break down and go the clonky Photoshop route...please forgive me!

Just in case you hadn't heard there will be a Royal Wedding in good old Blighty on Friday April 29th 2011...and if you'd like to celebrate then I have found and tweaked the

perfect recipe just for you!

It's PIECAKE...a cake baked in a pastry shell with pecans (or walnuts if you prefer) and toffee sauce, I made mine with maple syrup as a tribute to Maine and it is GOOD!!! Definitely worthy of Royalty and a recipe I have adapted from British Country Living...most apropos don't cha think?

Here she is in all her Piecake glory...YUM!!!!!

 

EASY PEASY SWEET TART CRUST:

Enough for one tart case about 9” diameter…nice and thin,

I am not a chunky crust personage so if you like a thicker pie crust make this for a smaller diameter pan:

Have your oven heated to 350F

1 1/2 cups/6ozs of unbleached white flour

1/2 cup/2ozs confectioners/icing sugar

1 stick + 1 tablespoon/ 4 1/2ozs butter VERY COLD

1 large egg yolk

a tad of milk or cream if your dough doesn't stick together

1. Sift dry ingredients together into a medium sized bowl.

2. Grate the butter into the dry ingreds., and rub in until like breadcrumbs.

3. Add egg yolk and blend carefully until the dough sticks together

4. Mine didn't stick together with just the egg yolk so I added baby drop by baby drop some cream until it did start to come together...be careful once it does start to come together it does so quite quickly...don't let it get sticky!!

5.Tear dough into big chunks…..place strategically in pie pan and start squushing to a create a smooth even covering of the entire pan…pop back into the pridge or freezer for 1/2 hour or so and let it get nice and cold..

The beauty of this crust is that it does NOT shrink…(although I will admit it shrank a little when baked blind as in this case...but not much!!) it stays put…good crust!!...and it tastes like a really good shortbread…yum!!

6. Pre-bake the crust for 10 minutes and then allow to cool.

The crust smushed into the pie dish

Piecake ready to go in the oven...do you see in the background someone in the house is goldleafing

THE FILLING:
4oz pecans or walnuts gently toasted for about 10 minutes at 150-200F

3 large eggs

5oz sugar (I translated this recipe from grams and the amount is odd and doesn't then translate into cups easily...sorry!!)

5oz sifted white flour unbleached

1 stick/4oz salted butter melted

10 whole walnut or pecan halves for the top of the cake.

1/2 cup maple syrup

2oz/ 1/2 stick salted butter

1. Crumble nuts into smaller pieces and sprinkle evenly over the slightly pre-baked pie crust.

2. Melt 2oz of butter with maple syrup and gently boil until the syrup foams up...allow to cool and then evenly pour over the nuts in the piecrust.

3. Beat the eggs until fluffy then add the sugar a spoonful at a time until all is added and mix is thick and pale.

4. Gently fold in the sifted flour.

5. Gently fold in the melted butter.

6. Spread this batter over the nuts and 'toffee' and then place the whole halves on the top - as above.

7. Bake in 350F oven for about 20-25 minutes until evenly browned on the surface.

8. Allow to cool before cutting...this is a great treat with a good steaming cup of tea AND it greatly improves with a couple of days keeping IF you can keep it around for that long...James and I didn't manage it...YUM!!!

Here's to a long and successful marriage for William and Kate....