It finally bloomed! The wait for my Pineapple Sage Pound Cake is over. I didn't think it would be the end of October until they blossomed out, I thought it would be more like the end of September.
Pineapple Sage is used for all kinds of things, delicious things. It is good to brew as a tea, I have dried some for that purpose. It is good in poultry dishes, pestos, flavourings for lemonade, smoothies and etc. Plenty of uses!
Pineapple Sage Pound Cake
1 c. butter
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1/2 c. brown sugar
5 eggs
5 tbsps, leaves and blossoms of pineapple sage
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. baking powder
2 c. flour
1/4 . c sugar seperately.
Preheat oven to 325 deg. Grease and flour a loaf pan. Then, sugar it with 1/4 c. additional sugar.
Place some small tender leaves and blossoms in the pan as pictured.
Prepare the batter and pour into the pan in blobs, such that the leaves and blossoms aren't displaced. spread to flatten on top.
This foots many bills! A seasonal pumpkin recipe for Halloween, or Thanksgiving. This recipe also came about from Pinterest, so another for my "I Did That!" board, created based on several beer cupcake pins.
This is not Smashing Pumpkins....
It is Pumpkick Fairy Cakes!
This also suits my continued use of local products. New Belgium brewery has a proud home in Fort Collins. Since Pumpkick is very limited in availability, it would be fine to substitute other pumpkin beers.
Shall we finally uncover the recipe?
Right then....
2 1/2 c. flour
1 3/4 c. brown sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
3/4 c. softened butter
1 c. pumpkin beer
3 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. cranberries
Coat cranberries with a small amount of the flour and set aside. Combine remaining ingredients. Add the eggs and liquid alternately, until a batter is formed. Fold in the reserved cranberries and flour. Fill regular sized paper-lined muffin tin. Each muffin cup should be filled 3/4 full. Bake in the preheated oven for 18-20 minutes.
Icing:
1 c. butter
1/2 c. pumpkin puree'
7 c. icing sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla
You can thin the icing as need with cream.
Cool fairy cake completely and then pipe, or spread the icing. Mine are garnished with chocolate covered cranberries.
It is such a bother when while bottling cider, one runs out of bottles. It is a scramble to figure out what to do with the precious liquid that remains. Well, I had that very problem!
The cider was captured and parked into the refrigerator, until I decided what to cook with it.
Well then, enter Pinterest, I stumbled on a recipe for Wort Pickles. That got the wheels turning....Cider Pickles! Then, I thought, lacto fermentation, as well. Which lead to this creation - Twice Fermented Pickles. I guess they could be called Drunken and Fermented Pickles.
Start with approximately, a dozen medium sized cucumbers and a 3 quart jar (of course, you could use 3 - 1 quart jars). These jars should be swing-top, unless you happen to have a fermentation set-up with canning type jars.
Wash your cucumbers and then top and tail them.
I used my handy crinkle cutter to slice them, as pictured.
Put those slices into your jar. Now make a brine from boiling 12 oz. apple cider vinegar, 3 pinches of sea salt, 2 handfuls fresh dill weed, 2 bay leaves, a pinch of peppercorns, 2 pinches turmeric, and 2 cups of sugar. Pour this over the sliced pickles. Let cool. They can be put into to refrigerator to cool. They should definitely be cool for the next step...
.Add 1/4 cup whey. I used the liquid from my home fermented saurkraut. You can use whey drained from plain yogurt. Mix this well with a wooden spoon.
Fill the remaining gap in the jar with apple cider. Let set outside the refrigerator for 2 days. After the 2 days, place in the refrigerator and enjoy right away. The pickles should be very good in about 2 weeks.
You do not want to can these pickles, it will kill the probiotics that you gain by lacto-fermentation. These pickles are of the refrigerator variety.
