It's interesting to note what inspires people and how inspiration and motivation can often be interpreted as one and the same thing.  Maybe they are the same thing.  In reality at least.  I think that adversity and/or the negative experiences we go through tend to inspire and motivate me more than the positive ones.  Sad but true.  I would venture to say that this is the case for more of us than we would care to admit.
The western world has been motivated to assemble in unity against terrorism and for freedom from censorship.  I had the odd experience of all of this outcry not quite sitting right with me.  Not being sure exactly why I felt odd about it, I started to let myself dwell on the situation and the issues that have arisen around the Paris incident.  Rolling it around, here is where my thoughts have gone up to now:
 - Is freedom from censorship the same thing as freedom of speech?
 - We talk about how powerful words are all of the time.  Our words affect people and can illicit a strong response - sometimes we can determine that outcome and sometimes we can't.  When does what we say become translated as hate?
 - We censor ourselves all of the time - every single day.  Journalists, artists, writers, researchers... you name it.  That censorship is based on the acceptable social norms currently in existence.  There are certain people groups and religious groups that I would never even consider writing negatively about.  However, that might not have been the case 75 short years ago.
 - No one should have to die for the things that those in the Charlie Hebdo offices died for.  Full stop.

I started to articulate what I was thinking to D.  I thought that maybe I was crazy to even be thinking this way.  Turns out that D, while not asking exactly the same questions, was definitely rolling things around as well.  He forwarded this article to me from The Intercept.  As I was reading it, I found myself feeling so thankful that I wasn't alone in feeling odd about this whole thing, I wasn't crazy either and that someone out there had managed to articulate their thoughts in a much more logical and concise way than I could have.  I'm not done stewing about this for sure but there are other things that are just as concerning... what about these guys?  Shall we march?


Look, cookies certainly are not at the top of the news food chain.  World crisis will not be widely affected by the baking of two more dozen cookies.  Still I make cookies.  Maybe I bake cookies for the same reason others watch reality tv or awards shows - for the record, I can't even force myself to sit through either one.  We do it to feel normal.  We do it because it helps us lose ourselves in something else.
Full disclosure:  I found that the cookies I made were a little too clementine overwhelmed.  The maple will be subtle no matter what (sometimes I wonder why I use maple syrup at all when I'm baking) but mine just turned into clementine cookies with a couple of weird bacon sprinkles on the top.  I have adjusted the amount of zest accordingly... feel free to add vanilla as well to round it out more.


Clementine, bacon and maple (?!) sugar cookies adapted from here
makes about 2 dozen

2 cups icing sugar
1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1 lg egg
1 tsp grated clementine or orange zest (no more than that!)
3 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
dash of nutmeg
2 tbsp maple syrup

1 egg white
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
1 tsp maple syrup
3 strips bacon - cooked until very crisp, drained and broken into small pieces

Combine the flour, salt and nutmeg together and set aside.
In a large bowl combine the icing sugar and butter.  Beat together until creamy.
Add the egg and clementine zest and continue to beat until light and fluffy.
Continue to beat on low and slowly add the flour mixture.  Beat only until combined.
Divide the dough into two portions.  Roll each portion into 3 inch round logs.  Cover each in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 12 hours.
Preheat oven to 370°F
Line a cookie sheet with parchment or a silicon liner.
Slice each log into 1/4 inch discs.  Place the discs on the lined cookie sheet leaving some room between each for spreading while baking.
Bake for about 7 - 8 minutes.
Remove cookies to a wire rack to cool.

Icing:
Beat together the egg white, icing sugar and maple syrup until creamy.
Pour about a tsp of icing on top of each cookie and immediately sprinkle with a little of the bacon (might want to press the bacon down just a little to wedge it into the icing)
Leave cookies for a while to let the icing get solid.

I'm going to Italy.  I don't think that I've mentioned this yet.  Maybe I have.  I am not in Italy presently.  I am not leaving for Italy tomorrow.  I will be gone in a couple of weeks.  I would love to tell you that I'd be idling around Florence and Rome for two weeks on the prowl for the best coffee and gelato but that is not the case.  I wish that I were telling you about the red Vespa that would transport through the narrow streets of Rome.  Nope - that's not happening either.  Although I'm not a big fan of biscotti in the afternoon, I am a fan of red wine in the afternoon but there won't be much of that happening either.  Instead, I'll be running around Florence and Rome with an entourage of about 250 of us most of whom are under the age of 18.  I will be one of the chaperones for these fine gentlemen - yes, they are all boys.  I will also be helping to prepare some of the soloists for the Mass that will be held at St Peter's with Pope Francis.  Hmmm - red wine in the afternoon with my red Vespa parked just off the terrace sounds much more fun.
With my trip only a couple of weeks away I am already thinking ahead for this blog.  I don't want to bore you all with two weeks straight of pictures from Italy and complaints about how many times 12 yr old boys complain about being hungry and needing to go to the bathroom.  I've spent the later part of this week and most of the weekend (well not most) cooking, baking and taking pictures.  I want to start getting ahead of things so that I've got some good stuff to give you when I'm away.  As a result of my kitchen plotting I didn't get my bike into the bike shop for it's tune-up.  That will be for next weekend.  I also didn't get around to getting my next tattoo arranged.  Maybe that's for next weekend too - I have been fawning over these one's though.  I'm not going to feel bad even for one minute about not cleaning my bathroom.


I've got some gorgeous blueberry squares coming and some Trini food in the pipe as well.  I've got faint plans to do something with this cauliflower crust pizza thing before winter is completely over with.  I spied this cornmeal casserole thing that looks interesting too.  Chicken potstickers.  Yeah - there are a lot of plans floating around in my head.

Buckwheat flour has these dark specks  - so beautiful.

One of the first things that left the kitchen this week were these muffins.  They did not stick around for long but mostly because I shared.  It happened to be playdate day for both Kid #1 and #2 so I shared with each family involved.  I made these with orange juice and orange zest which I decided - once I tasted the zest in the batter - that I don't really like.  I would leave it out next time.  The recipe itself called for persimmon pulp which I didn't have so I just replaced it with buttermilk (and orange juice) and things turned out quite fine.  They are pretty chocolatey and rich so sharing was perfect here because a little goes a long way.  I'm going to point ever so gently to the sentance earlier in this paragraph where I mentioned 'playdate' and refer you to my previous post where I talk about my parenting philosophy.  We had an afternoon and evening of 'playdates' happening in the middle of our March Break week.  Both D and I felt like stellar parents and celebrated ourselves heartily afterwards... and we survived BTW.


Whole Grain Chocolate Muffins adapted from 'Good to the Grain'
makes about med/lg 13 - 15 muffins

1 cup buckwheat flour
1 1/2 cups unbleached, all purpose flour
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp instant espresso powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda

3 oz unsalted butter, soft or almost room temperature
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup plain yogurt or sour cream
grated zest of 1 orange (optional)
2 cups total: use the juice of the zested orange and fill to 2 cups with buttermilk
7 oz dark chocolate (42  - 60%) coarsely chopped

Preheat oven to 350°F.
Rub a muffin tin with butter or line with silicon  or paper cups.  Set aside.
Sift together the buckwheat and all purpose flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, espresso powder, salt and baking soda.  Mix and set aside.
In another bowl beat together the butter and both sugars until light and creamy coloured.  Add in the eggs and continue to beat until combined.
Add in the yogurt and mix well.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet.  Mix well and gradually add the buttermilk/orange juice mixture.  The batter should be much thinner at this point.
Gently fold in the chopped chocolate and mix gently.
Scoop the batter into the prepared tins until the batter comes just over the top edge of the muffin cup.
Bake for about 35 minutes or until the muffin springs back or until a tester comes out clean.
Cool on a rack.
Eat warm or store for a couple of days.  Freezes well.

Over the course of the weekend that I was wading my way through 3 bushels of tomatoes (which you may have noticed I'm still a little traumatized by) my friend T came over.  As soon as he walked in he got in there and started helping.  That was awesome because D wasn't around to help at that particular moment and also because I was nearing the end of both the tomatoes and my sanity.
Although he grew up on a farm T had never participated in the canning process.  He talked about having entire days where the boys went out and picked as many __________ (fill in the blank with whatever vegetable you want) and the girls and Mom would get it ready to either freeze it or can it.  So it was kinda a girls job to get things canned.  T was curious about the whole thing and totally ready to get in there and figure it out for himself.
It got us to talking about all of the preserving/gardening/hunting/husbanding/surviving thing.  We agreed that not just a generation ago (ok - let's say 60 years give or take) it would have pretty much everybody that knew how to can or preserve.  Everybody knew what to do with the vegetables at the end of the season.  Everybody knew how to save seeds for next year.  Everybody knew how to make jam or preserves.  And the list goes on.  Whether or not they did it themselves, they knew someone who did and wouldn't have died of starvation if the local grocer went out of business.  The rise of the 'low fat' craze meant that we could no longer rely on the old standby's that got us through in the past.  We had to have the right kind of oil for cooking, margarine can't be made at home, low fat sour cream is not the stuff that comes out of a cow and most certainly tofurky or turkey bacon either.
It also became a status symbol to eat things that came from a large processing company rather than from  a farm.  I remember being in love with chef boyardee ravioli because that's what my Mom bought (my brother love spaghetti o's and beefaroni).  It meant that you could afford it.  It meant that you didn't have to make it yourself.  I get it.
What happened however, is that we forgot.  We've forgotten a lot.  Some people I meet don't even know how to make rice (no joke - and I take that very seriously).  T and I talked about how important it will probably become that those things be remembered again.  The making of butter by hand, the awesomeness of raw milk that you can skim the cream off the top of, the great feeling you get when you open that jar of jam in January and it's... beautiful (and good for your immune system too).  It's sad that those things have been forgotten to be sure but what's more... it's dangerous.  It's important to know that we don't need to buy them from a grocery... we have the option of doing it ourselves... and we know how to do it.


That's why I want to teach my kids about all this stuff.  Canning, freezing, growing, preserving, making from scratch and using what's around us and not's thousands of kilometres away... because it's important to know that you have options.  It's important to be able to fend for yourself.  It's empowering to know that you can provide for yourself and that you can make bread.  More than ever I appreciate that I can do this.  That I can put the ingredients together and knead it by hand and my kids can watch me and they can smell the bread baking and know it didn't come out of a bag.  Bread is important and we haven't had enough of it throughout the summer.  Now that it's cooler... bread is back and this loaf was pretty damn near perfect.


Red Fife Honey Bread adapted from Betty Crocker
yield: 1 loaf (can easily be doubled)


1 1/2 cups Red Fife or Whole Wheat flour
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 1/4 cup warm water
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
1 tsp brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp fresh orange zest
6 tbsp unsalted butter at room temperature


Combine the warm water, yeast and brown sugar.  Stir and set aside in a draft free spot for about 8 - 10 minutes.  The mixture should be foamy and have almost doubled.
Butter or grease a medium sized non-reactive bowl and set aside.
In a large bowl combine the Red Fife flour and 1 cup of the all purpose flour.  Form a well in the middle of the flour and add the honey, salt, orange zest and butter.  Add in the foamy yeast mixture.  Stir to mix well until it forms a wet dough ball.
Turn out the dough ball onto a lightly flour surface and knead for about 10 minutes until the dough is silky and smooth.  Add in the rest of the all purpose flour as needed.
Place the dough into the buttered bowl.  Cover with a clean cloth and set in a warm, draft-free spot for about 50 - 60 minutes or until almost doubled in size.
Butter or grease a loaf pan.
Remove and knead down just enough to form into a loaf.  Place the dough loaf into the loaf pan.  Cover with the clean cloth and set aside in a warm, draft-free spot to rise for another 45 - 50 minutes or until the loaf has risen over the top of the pan and looks like it's the size it should be.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Bake the bread for about    minutes or until the top is nicely browned and it sound hollow when you knock on it.
Cool before slicing.

And then it was done... I missed it.
It's friday night.  I am making pizza's for our friday evening's pleasure.  We are settling in to watch 'Tangled' and then I'm getting up and it's Monday a.m. at some ridiculously early hour and I am feeling hung over even though (unfortunately) I am not.  And what happened.
Oh yeah... I remember... just a little... these happened.


By about 3:30 Monday afternoon I was so glad that these happened.
I am saying goodbye to citrus season slowly but surely.  What I ride we've had this year.  I'm still dreaming about the lemon curd that I made before Christmas and scheming to make more next year and maybe freeze it.  Lemon cupcakes... yeah... those were amazing too.  But these cookies.  These cookies...
Jeez - don't you hate it when someone writes like that?  YOU HAVE TO MAKE THESE COOKIES NOW OR ELSE YOU MIGHT NOT MAKE IT THROUGH ANOTHER DAY - YOU HAVE NEVER EVEN EATEN A REAL COOKIE UNTIL YOU EAT THESE... that kind of writing.  Why must we constantly make things more and more amazing.  Look good is good and these cookies are/were good.  'nuff said.  Sometimes good is just good.  I don't need these cookies to blow my world, I just need them to do what cookies are supposed to do.  Be good.  My head is in a weird space today and I'm tired from dealing with my own brain.


Allow me to demonstrate:
Today at work one of the conductors that I work with said to the grade 4 choir that as a musician you are always doing one of two things:  1.  Getting better and working towards getting better OR 2.  Getting worse.  No in between.
It hits me like a ton of bricks.  Dang - I've got to ponder that for a while.  I'm sure that the grade 4 class just took it in the conductors words and may someday remember that little gem but I was thinking about it for a long time afterwards... I'm still thinking about it.  I need to think about it for a while and roll it around.  It sounds profound but I'm not sure - I might just be over-thinking it.  I'm immediately standing there in the class with the grade 4 boys thinking about whether I'm a number 1 or a number 2 (that sounds weird).  I'm analysing my past and present and thinking about how to change my future.  I'm wondering if I need to jot down some ideas about how I can place myself squarely in the number 1 slot.  I'm feeling an immediate need to journal.  In short... I'm seriously over thinking this.  And that's only about 3 minutes of my brain's day today.  Eek.


So when it comes to the cookies, I'm not going to wreck them by overstating that I love them and that even though they corn starch in them and I thought it was weird that they turned out really well.  I'm not going to go on and on about how I can take them with me to school because they're nut free and they're also small so I can eat like about 12 and not feel too guilty.  I'm definitely not going to ramble about how they are perfect for me who's a non-sweet-tooth disguised as a sweet tooth and how happy I am that over the last 4 days I've now baked two things that I actually like to eat.  Nope... not gonna do it.
These cookies are good.  There.  Done.  Simple.  Happy Monday.

 


Lemon Melting Moments with a splash of orange adapted from Two Tiny Kitchens and an Australian radio or tv show (?)
makes

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature and cubed
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 1/2 cups all purpose unbleached flour
1/2 cup corn starch (!)
1 tsp vanilla
zest of one lemon and one orange (it's a lot, I know)

Icing

11/2 cup icing sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature and cubed
zest and juice of 1 lemon

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.  Line a cookie sheet or two with parchment or silicon liners.  Set aside.

Combine the flour and cornstarch together in a bowl and set aside.
Mix the butter, salt and icing sugar together until light and fluffy.  Add in the vanilla and lemon and orange zest.  Fluff together.  Add in the flour/corn starch mixture.  Mix until well combined.
Form into about 30 little balls (about a 1 1/2 tbsp worth) and place on the prepared cookie sheet.  Press each ball down a little with your finger or using a fork but only until it leaves a print.
Bake for about 20 minutes - it should just be slightly golden on the bottom of the cookie.
Remove from the oven and place each cookie on a cooling rack to cool completely.
Once the cookies are completely cooled then plop a little bit of icing onto the top of each one.  You can also spread a good amount of icing on the bottom of one cookie and then sandwich it together with another cookie.
Icing:
Combine together the icing sugar and butter together - I used a fork to max it all together little by little.  Once it's mixed well then add in the lemon juice only a tbsp at a time until it's the right thickness to use for the cookies.

I know that it's another cake recipe.  I've decided though that I just have to stop apologizing.  It's part of who I am.  It's in my DNA.  I wish that I could tell you that it's vegan or no sugar or made completely with whole wheat flour and wheat bran.  I would love to be able to tell you that it's full of flax seed or whatever the hell the latest thing is that going to do everything from lower your cholesterol to adding about 20 years to your life span whilst simultaneously taking 15 years off your face.
It's not.  It's just cake.
I had to make it 'cause the oranges in my house were wilting and I had egg whites people.  EGG WHITES.  And anyway, who wants to eat whole wheat flour and flax seed when they get home from work/school?  Not me.  Even if it's flax seed cake.  I want cake.  Not a lot.  Just enough.  I'll eat a piece of fruit too.  I'll eat some whole wheat bread with natural almond butter... but sometimes I also want a little taste of cake.  And no chocolate this week Please.
Look, I'm not averse to all things healthy and natural and crap.  I like it too.  I use seeds and flax and whole wheat and oats.  I can proudly tell you that D now likes... prefers even... brown rice.  That makes me happy.  What makes me even happier is that my kids prefer to eat my treats than the crap in their hallowe'en bags.  That makes me proud.  Plus, having that little hit of sugar makes the getting home after work so much easier in the middle of November.  Not that November has been so bad.  I'm still collecting little raspberries from the bush and look at what was blooming the other day... it's actually a little weird.


I guess that sometimes you just need the hit.  That little punch to your system.  Maybe we're addicted.  Maybe it's wrong.  But please don't hate me for my cake.  This sweet, innocent little orange cake just needing to be wanted.  It's very unassuming.  It's very simple.  I prefer it with no icing but the rest of the people in my house wanted it so I obliged.


What can I say:
Happy.


Orange Cake adapted from The Silver Palate Cookbook

1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs separated (or 1 yolk and about 3 eggs whites - jeez, maybe I used more than that)
grated zest of 2 oranges
1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup fresh orange juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Grease and flour a 10 inch tube pan and set aside.
Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in a bowl and set aside.
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.  Add in the egg yolks and beat until fluffy.  Add in the orange zest and beat until combined.
Add the flour and orange juice alternately, beginning and ending with the flour.  Beat continuously.
In another bowl beat the egg whites until stiff.  Fold gently into the cake batter.
Pour into the prepared pan.
Bake for 30 - 35 minutes or until the sides pull away from the edge of the pan and a cake tester comes out clean.
Cool for 10 minutes in the pan and the remove to a cooling rack.
Glaze #1 (if you choose) while the cake is still warm.

1/4 cup fresh orange juice
1/4 cup sugar

Heat together for about 5 minutes until it forms a light syrup.  Pour over warm cake.

Glaze #2 (this is the one that I made)

1 1/2 cups icing sugar
enough cream to get it to the desired consistency.
Mix together adding cream a little at a time.
Pour onto cooled cake.

I recently posted this as my status on facebook:  'Wanda Thorne is not the sum of her purchases'

We've been hearing a lot over the last year or so in Toronto about how we are 'tax-payers' in our city or how we are 'consumers' in our city.  I'm not interested in being a part of something where I only matter in as much as I spend or don't spend.  I say B.S.  I am a citizen and not a consumer.

Recently I went to a big grocery store.  You know the ones.  Big parking lot.  Big carts.  So many rows of stuff that I have to read the sign hanging at the beginning of each row to know what's down there.  So many freezers that you get cold standing in the freezer aisle.  A live band playing upstairs... having an upstairs.
I usually get my grocery shopping done either by the food box or small Mom and Pop kinda places.  So this was... well, it's been a while.  I was a bit overwhelmed.  I had a short list but a specific one and even with all those rows of crap they didn't have exactly what I was looking for.  What amazed me about it was that it took a long time.  Dare I say it even.... it wasn't convenient.  It's like being at Wonderland or Disney World.  It's this little world that exists in and of itself, disconnected from the world outside.  I didn't know what time it was anymore.  There was so much meat that I got confused and just walked away.  It was a bubble and I felt like I got sucked into it and had to get out quick.  Yeah, I started to get a little weirded out.   Most people though were sauntering through, had kids with them, were listening to music... it was like an excursion.  It's not an excursion that I want to have on a regular basis.
I guess that's how it is most of the time now.  Shopping Malls are full... always.  With people who are walking around.  Are they buying things?  Are they there to get something specific and go?  Is the simple act of walking around these places just continuing to feed this message that we are what we consume?  Don't get me wrong, I don't think that shopping is evil.  We all need to shop.  But what I buy, where I buy it and when, those things do not define who I am.  I am not going to let a marketing firm or an advertising agency inform how I live my life.  When I am 'bored' shopping or going to the Mall is not the first thing that I want to do.
If I think of all that stuff that my great grand-parents had to do in a day and all of the machinery that we have now that let's us off the hook all in the name of 'efficiency and having more time' then I'm staggered and a little embarassed that we fill so much of it with buying stuff.
As a side note, I've been thinking a lot about this article lately.  I saw it on one of my fave blogs and I know that the writer is pretty out there - yeah, I'm well aware of his reputation - but I'm starting to think that maybe what we need is more of the 'kinda out there' because just kinda doing it at home and not being 'out there' is not working....


My neighbours gave me a *&%t load of rhubarb.   My head's not really around rhubarb right now but it came from their parents garden.  I'm not gonna say no.  So, I found some other fruit in my freezer and made this stuff.  Sauce for whatever you'd like.  I'd say vanilla ice cream is at the top of my list but I'm not about to tell you what to do with it.  Just try it.  It's good... really good.... and share some of it with friends.

Calling all gardeners.
My garden sucks... please help me.
Ok, I'm being a total drama queen here.  It's mostly doing ok it's just the seeds that I put in that are sucking.  My zucchini seeds haven't taken at all.  Only one plant started to peak through the ground and the next day it was dug up by a stupid squirrel.  I even followed the directions on the stupid seed packet, Geez.  My carrot seeds haven't faired much better.  So far I've only gotten a handful of seedlings and I planted a whole packet.  I'm not sure what I've done wrong.  I seem to have consistently bad luck with zucchini - a few years in a row now - but the carrots, that's a new one.  I'm trying to stay focussed on the positive.  My beans and tomato plants are going gangbusters and my herbs are doing well (parsley, chive, basil, dill and oregano).  It's not a complete failure but the stupid zucchini/carrot crap is really bumming me out.  I've gotta figure something else to plant there so that I'm not constantly looking at this bare patch of ground with nothing happening on it.
This whole garden 'thing/crap/bum/downer' got me to thinking though.


Just a little while ago I was emailing my friend C back and forth.  She is holding down the fort while B works out of province.  Right now she's swamped with a very large garden and a small orchard to tend.  I have volunteered to come up every couple of weeks to help out with things.  I can't wait to get my hands in there and learn some gardening chops from a serious gardener... plus, I'll bet that she has carrots and zucchini coming up.
I've got a strawberry season coming up too so C and I are going to pick together and then do some jammin' ... that sounds funny.  I'm still working at clearing out my freezer.  I'm obviously not working hard at it though because I've been at it for a while and I've got a small freezer... and remember, I'm not a horder.  Anyway, slow and steady wins the race after all.  I pulled out a container of egg whites and a bag of frozen blueberries and I don't want to think about how long the blueberries have been hibernating in there Please.  I know that I have to try making meringues or something with egg whites - maybe a 'pavlova' but at the moment when the egg whites and the blueberries were in my hand something magical happened.  And then I was making this....

I think that my angel food cakes still come out looking weird.

So I'm now feeling better about my garden blank spot (thanks for the blog therapy) and looking forward to helping my friend and wondering what the hell is going to come out of my freezer next.


Blueberry Orange Angel Food Cake
adapted from foodnetwork.com

1 1/2 cups egg whites
1 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 1/8 cup cake flour
zest of one orange
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries (tossed in flour)

Glaze:
juice of one orange
1 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 3    degrees F.
Grease and flour a tube pan.
Combine the cake flour, sugar, salt and cream of tartar.  Sift the mixture four times in total and set aside.
Whisk the egg whites until they form peaks and have at least doubled in volume.
Gently fold the flour mixture into the egg whites using a big whisk.  Add in the orange zest and whisk a little more.  Fold in the floured blueberries.
Gently pour the batter into the tube pan, running a knife through the batter to remove air bubbles.
Bake for about 30 minutes.
Remove from the oven and cool completely before removing from the pan (the sides of the cake should be completely pulling away from the pan).
Glaze:
Combine the juice and the sugar.  Simmer over med/low heat for about 15 minutes or until the mixture thickens to a syrup.  Pour over the cooled cake.

Today I went with my daughter and the Eco-Club at my school to City Hall. We were staying there for lunch and visiting the new Green Roof that has just opened recently. We also got to meet with the Deputy Mayor - Joe Pantalone - who was instrumental in getting the green roof installed. We were also celebrating our schools success at getting 'Silver' Eco School Certification. We sat in the rooftop garden and ate our lunch (litterless, of course ;-). The weather was perfect. I was able to bring my daughter with me and we had a great time.

This all, fortunately, coincided with my baking day (usually either Sunday or Monday). So, I was able to share these fantastic cookies with some of my colleagues. We thoroughly enjoyed them. I'm not kidding when I tell you fantastic. I can't even tell you exactly what makes these cookies work but man, do they work! Do not skip the frosting (as I briefly considered) on these babies. It would be tragic.

Caroline over at 'Whipped' wrote that these cookies could change the world. Ah... if only it were so easy. However, I think that we could at least get a few minutes of world peace with these ones....

Orange Frosted Cookies


1 cup shortening (or butter - I used unsalted at room temperature)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 - 3 tbsp fresh orange juice (about 1 orange)
1 tbsp orange zest
2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt


Frosting:


3 cups icing sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2 - 3 tbsp fresh orange juice
1 -2 tbsp grated orange zest


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
In a bowl mix the flour, baking soda and salt together and set aside. In a larger bowl mix together the butter and sugar and mix/whip until fluffy. Add the egg and orange juice and mix well. Add in the orange zest until mixed in. Add in the flour, baking soda and salt and mix well. Place in smallish spoons on a lined cookie sheet and bake for about 10 - 12 minutes.
Allow them to cool completely.

In another bowl sift the icing sugar and then add the butter and about 1 or 2 tbsp of the orange juice. Mix well and add the last tbsp or so once it needs it (wait until things have gotten mixed a bit though). Once the mixture looks like it's the right consistency (ie. not too runny) add in the orange zest.
Spread about a tbsp full of icing onto the top of each completely cooled cookie.