Getting a flat top on my cake

 Probably most bakers know what to do, but it has taken me till I am past my prime to realise that out there on the internet there could be an answer.  Yes my large cakes have always had a bulge which through the oven window you can see start to peak after the edges have set and also perhaps even a crack on the top through which softer unbaked cakes emerges as if the cake is having internal problems which can only resolve itself in some herniation.  

I understand all the reasons now, and before maybe buying a purpose made item decided to see whether this would be a 'cure'.  Well a cure to the problem, is taking a slice off the cake, but I wanted to get at the root causes and avoid the problem altogether.

It has worked with a old tea towel cut to size and soaked in water, and lots of fiddling with needles and thread and some wet string tied around to hold it in place. Hurrah! I may well get a nice purpose make external collar which will mean loads of my favourite cakes baked once more.  

Thinking over what Mandy added below, I went and looked at this interesting article with opinions of some top bakers, and I shall try plain flour with added raising agent rather than carrying self raising versions. 

Six on Saturday - Mid July 2023

This Saturday there is no moan about the lack of rain, we have had a good quantity. I think I may even try making a simple rain guage for the garden.  Any suggestions or advice regarding this?  Can a post start with a question?  Well those are two questions so far, often I end up with answers but also other interesting insights as I join the 'community' of people who love their gardens and plants, that is Six on Saturday currently hosted by Jim. You need not post there so don't be shy, do have a read of some of posts, you'll be inspired or even be able to sympathise as you read about triumphs or regrets or just tribulations in the garden.

1. Rhodohypoxis 'Pintado' is enjoying the rain and has come forth with another flush of pretty pink flowers. 

Even the ones planted out in the gravel garden are looking much much happier now they have had some of the summer rain they thrive on.

2. Out in the gravel garden is this lovely blue/purple flowered Eryngium bourgatii.  I am even happier with this one as I grew it from seed received from the HPS.  When I lost my previous one and saw it listed, I decided to give it a try, and now my patience has paid off. Even without its flower the leaves do look quite handsome against the gravel.

3. A few years ago when visiting Westbrook House Gardens, I happen to notice a most magnificent pelargonium in their glass house. I also visited again earlier this year with our WI gardening group and met with  Garden designer Keith Anderson,  Keith kindly permitted me to take a few cuttings, and here they are already flowering.

But just look at this:  I happened to have taken a cutting in 2021 from another plant I very much admired again it was Frank Headley, and with several overwintered cuttings, I now have two further bowls full of salmony pink blooms. They are all Pelargonium Frank Headley!

4. Last Saturday Mr S was persuaded to drive me out to visit one of my favourite Wells market plant stall holder: Glenholme Herbs who were opening their nursery and gardens. For once Alison was not at the market with her wide variety of herbs, but playing host at the establishment which is family run. Just by chance we bumped into Keith Anderson and David Mendel,from Westbrook House and had a nice chat with them.  Did I come away with anything..just a few plants but now potted up and centred on the table is a pretty scented Pelargonium Lemon Fancy. It has the lemoniest of leaves and a pretty pink bicoloured flower. I shall be layering a few leaves in caster sugar and trying it out of some simple Madeleine cakes.

5. Mulch is what I have been doing when it has not been raining, I love getting down low amongst the plants and spreading the stuff, imagining the worms doing their job over the next few months.  The plants are already feeling the benefit what with all the rain as well.

To stop the goodness leaching onto the drive and getting washed into the nearby stream Mr S covered the bag then just before the high winds lassoed rope around the edges to stop the sheet being blown away , a sort of pool of rainwater is collecting on the top,but was quickly emptied to avoid compaction of the lovely mulch. I must leave an upturned bucket under the cover to stop the water from collecting.

6. One job leads to another maybe, and a completely unforeseen one arose during the week.  I needed to move some pots off the gravel to give me room to mulch along the edge of the conservatory border.  I moved the Japanese Umbrella Pine Sciadopitys Verticillata, which is not a pine, but it is a coniferous evergreen and sometimes referred to as a living fossil. I held it by the stem as well as the pot and decided to check on the root growth. The plant was light and there amongst the roots there were myriads of holes and three quarters down the pot were hundreds of ants with a large number of pupae.  I know the garden is full of ants but here they were doing the lovely tree no good at all.  It was of course repotted, but Mr S from the kitchen noticed it was a bit wonky.  

I believe it needs a bit of a prune perhaps to give it an even more quirky shape  or should I suggest that it follows the Japanese esthetic, but Mr S rather likes this one, and I haven't yet perked up the courage to do it. When it is back in its position I rather think it will right itself.

Yesterday my little module received in the spring won a prize, but more about that next week. 

In a Vase on Monday-A Fortunate Woman

Cathy is our host for this weekly get together, even though I may sometimes absent myself, it is a regular place I link my little arrangements from garden flowers and enjoy looking at what other people are sharing.

The roses are having a little rest, and I have busy moving a large amount of mulch delivered on a palette in one of those big square bags.  Moving buckets and gently spreading them on the ground gets me right down to soil level and appreciating plants that maybe don't get that much attention. What a fortunate woman I am having the leisure and space to garden, to relax, to listen to the birds, and feel clean air and view clear skies.

The long purple spikes of Teucrium hircancicum seem to be longer and more splendid this year.  I grew these from seed in a packet which came with one of those gardening magazines which flop onto my mat about three times a month, ie three different magazines! I had grown it elsewhere in the garden but these plants have longer flowering stems.  In the middle a stem of Eryngium Planum Tetre Petra and below Achillea ageratum also called English Mace and today I found out also Sweet Nancy.  that is the paler flower.  The more yellow one is probably Achillea 'Terracotta', but much bleached by the sun.

For our reading group I am one book ahead and have just finished A Fortunate Woman by Polly Morland.  It just made me envious wanting that sort of medical practitioner. Years ago when my son was born I had a wonderful doctor Dr McDiarmid, he had that personal touch a true physician.

I am looking forward to the discussions in a month or so.

Tasty Supper with a Salsify Salad and for Pudding Roasted Pineapple with French Coconut Macaroons

 This sounds like an elaborate supper, but it was mainly drawing from things I had in the fridge.  

At the same time as I bought the pineapple I also picked up another bargain: four long roots of Salsify.  I  used to love this when I was little, and as if by magic my father used to produce a few roots which he and I would savour together as a starter with a little oil and vinegar, salt and pepper.  I couldn't quite remember how to cook it, and went to my trusted source Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book. My copy dates back to 1979 when I started my vegetable garden.  She writes well about each vegetable in turn and gives background on their history, how to prepare the vegetables and several recipes for each one. I went with her method of washing off them thoroughly then cooking them in as long pieces as possible.  I cut each root into two to fit into the pan, and then when tender whilst still hot, but putting them under the tap so as not to burn myself, found the skins slipped off easily. As they cooled the skin became more difficult to remove.  They were immediately dressed with lemon juice and olive oil.  We had some warm the first day, but last night, for the quick supper, it was simply a cold breast of chicken with some garnish of garden lettuce and salsify. 

I went on to add a few black olives, and use up a little brown rice left in the fridge by sauteing first a red onions and adding in the rice, using walnut oil that gave a nice flavour.  A little pomegranate molasses was added to give a fruity finish over the salify.

To follow with goat's yogurt for Monsieur, and Sheep's yogurt pour moi, which we have every evening, we used up the last of the roasted pineapple.

With the last of bargain pineapples I looked for a new 'roasted pineapple' recipe on line and came across Jill Colonna's blog called Mad about Macarons.  By coincidence I did have her book but had passed it to a neighbour so that she and her grand daughter could have some 'bake together time'. I've printed off her recipe and really did follow it exactly this time including the cayenne powder. 

I chose not to remove the core, as it is that part that contains the highest concentration of bromelain, and we are used to it.  As it was a large pineapple the roasted slices yielded eight portions, which made this a very economical desert, especially as I picked up the eight perfect pineapples for £2 the lot.  This size costs £2 each in Waitrose!  

I also made from the one egg white hanging around in the fridge a half batch of Jill's Coconut Macaroons.  Even on day three having been stored in a sealed container, they were delicious and complement the roasted pineapples perfectly.

Six on Saturday The first of July

Last week Jim. who is the anchor point for this weekly meme about six things in the garden, raised the topic of plants that are resilient to our  warmer and drier summers. Most of this week's post is devoted to this topic.

1.Tanacetum densum subs amani whose everyday name is 'Partridge Feathers'. so apt with its finely shaped leaves. 

Tanacetum densum subs amani 

It comes from hot dry rocky areas in southeastern Turkey and had been planted in the front garden.  As I wanted to see this a little more often and as it is on the edge of the road close to the area being driven over by cars and delivery vans as they clumsily reverse around the corner.  I moved it to the gravel garden in around April, and as the stems were raggedy also cut it right down.  As if a Turkish mountain goat had had a good meal, and thankfully it is right back, and apart for the water in when transplanted it hasn't any watering and very little rain until just a couple of days ago.

2. Also in the gravel garden just sneaking into the picture above is a little plant that I saw and bought as a 'souvenir' from Beth Chatto's garden.  It is Phyla nodiflora commonly called Turkey tangle frogfruit, a creeping vervain. The turkey and the partridge are be side by side. It dies back for the winter and seems to disappear for that season.

3. Another plant in the gravel garden that is resilient to the dry weather we have been having is the often featured Erodium Frans Delight. It has a very long period of flowering, and here is due to a session, where I sit down on my kneeling cushion and remove all the spent flower stems.

Erodium Frans Delight

A small plant taken as a cutting is growing quite happily without any watering over in a hard baked batch of clay to which I had mixed in some horticultural grit.

4. Over in the front 'Mediterranean Garden' is a plant that has the most wonderful shape.  Again a silver leaved plant: Ballota pseudodictamnus is a favourite on many levels. In front are some Sedum 'Purple Emperor', with Artemesia Powis Castle towards the back left hand side, and various low growing resilient plants such as the silver leaved Euphorbia myrsinites.  I have left it to hopefully self seed to increase the number of plants along the front garden, but this week the old flowering stems need to be cut back.

Ballota pseudodictamnus

During the week I and fellow gardening club members went to visit a member's garden, in Wells established only a few years ago.  Anthony and Maggie's garden facing south on a hill with wonderful views had again been planted with mainly mediterranean plants.  Their Ballota seemed to have a different shape to its stems, so a few cuttings were 'begged' and are now planted directly into the soil in the back garden.  Of course it may have been just different conditions that led to the variation in growth.  It will take a couple of years to tell.

5. Curving round the outside of the house out of sight of any of my windows the Mediterranean garden has other plants that have to survive without watering and this  Teucrium Hircanicum works well the adjacent silver leaved Centaurea 'Silver Feather'.

The exchange with Jim last week about which plants require less watering or non at all, enabled  me to look at the garden and consider the planting from an interesting angle. A few plants have been earmarked to increase, which some I am already starting to remove as they require watering just at the time when the waterbutt is empty.  Until this week we have had very little rain missing that which fell over on the top and to the north of the Mendips.  It is ironic that the pictures taken yesterday evening have rain drops on them, and maybe even on the camera lense. It was mainly very light rain and I am sure with just a day of sunshine it will be back to dry again, but we have a few showers and cooler temperatures forecasted. 

6. This week Jim is showing us his allotment, I have a small postage sized vegetable are, but I have also been a bit lackadaisical about my small veggie area this year. After seperate weeks of being away I hope to make the autumn more production, and have got on with a little sowing in my new tiny modules, one of which I raised a set of pansies which are already in the ground.  I am taking some tips from Charles Dowding who only lives a few miles away. 

Amongst these are lettuce, which I think will need resowing now the temps are a little cooler, as on the first day of their sowing it got a bit hot in there under their dome, as I had not yet put on the white fleece to reduce the sunlight and heat, but this morning I can just see evidence of the coriander seed.  The first lot is now in flower, over the next few days, I pick the green seeds and freeze these to add to the various spicy dishes and preserves I make.  This way they retain the fresh coriander leaf flavour. 

Coriander in flower

This morning and this evening will be slug and snail hunting season...taken on The Amelanchier tree in the front garden.

That is all this week, hopefully with less watering, more time can be spent on other garden activities.