These are from Pike Place Market in Seattle, where they are just starting to be available. I love peonies. Their scent transports me. I have some in my garden, and for the first time they are covered in buds, because I finally realized that they like alkaline, not acid, soil. I can’t wait until my own bloom, but here are these until then.

Visit Ruby Tuesday and Color Carnival to see more wonderful photos with a theme (in the blogging world, that’s a meme). And after wandering through tags and categories and archives around here, click on Sara’s Fave Photos above to get back to the latest post.

Today I’m posting a fabulous recipe with notes. It’s long, but not that hard (I included all the details so it will come out right if you make it), so scroll down a bit to see the photos that go with it. My daughter and I made this on Saturday just for the heck of it and it was SO GOOD! To read the story about the history of this cake in my family, read the What Cake story.

By the way, the strawberries on top were HUGE and make the cake look small. It’s not.

You can always return to the most recent post here by clicking on Sara’s Fave Photos above.

Hot Milk Sponge Cake (Sylvia Messer’s recipe), serves approx. 16

325 degrees preheated, (check at 40 min. if using 9″ pans, 45-50 min. for 8″ pans)

Use (2) 8″ or 9″ round spring-form cake pans, UNGREASED

7 large eggs, separated (room temp.)
1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 c. sugar (can be half turbinado or raw, mixed with half regular white), divided
2 tsp. vanilla
2 c. cake flour (substitute w.w. pastry flour OK)
2 tsp. baking powder
pinch salt
2 oz. butter
6 oz. milk

3 cups heavy whipping cream
3 tablespoons powdered sugar
dash vanilla

4+ pints strawberries

Separate eggs. Essential that NO yolk specks end up in whites. Put yolks into small mixer bowl, whites into large mixer bowl. Recommend using small dish per egg separated before dumping whites in large bowl to check for egg yolk contamination!

Beat whites until frothy. Add cream of tartar, mix until almost stiff, then slowly add 1/2 cup of sugar. Mix until stiff peaks but do not overbeat. Set aside.

Sift flour onto waxed paper and measure 2 cups without packing flour in any way. Use large spoon to scoop carefully into measuring cup. Resift. Resift again adding baking pdr. and salt. Check measurement. If using whole wheat pastry flour, use scant 2 cups flour. Set aside.

In small pan, heat milk and butter, DO NOT BOIL, until butter melts. Keep warm.

Beat yolks for 2 minutes. Add remaining sugar and vanilla slowly; beat one more minute.

Add flour mix and hot milk mix alternately, very slowly, into egg yolk mix while beating slowly.

Fold yolk mix SUPER GENTLY by hand into stiff whites. Be patient but do not collapse whites.

Pour equally into two ungreased spring-form pans. Stagger pans in oven so they are not directly over each other. Bake until golden brown and toothpick comes out clean or until surface springs back when pressed gently with finger. 325 degrees preheated oven, (check at 40 min. if using 9″ pans, 45-50 min. for 8″ pans)

While cake is baking and cooling, wash big mixer bowl and beaters. Place in refrigerator to chill for best whipped cream.

Cool cakes upside down on racks ONE HOUR only. Then use table knife to cut cake away from sides of spring-form pan. Remove sides. Use long knife to cut from bottom of pans. Carefully place one cake layer, top side down, on cake plate. (Note: if freezing cakes, freeze while still on bottoms of pans.)

Whipped cream: Beat cold cream in cold bowl with cold beaters at high speed. As cream starts to thicken, add 3 T powdered sugar (or to taste) and dash vanilla. Continue beating until cream begins to firm. Reduce speed and carefully mix cream until very firm, but not gloppy or too firm (i.e., butter)!

Prepare strawberries: Wash, hull, trim and dry strawberries, separating into 2 groups of large, perfect berries and the others. Save imperfect and/or small berries for center layer of whipped cream. You may cut these if still too large.

Assembling cake: Put layer of whipped cream on top of bottom layer, about 1/2 inch. Spread evenly with rubber spatula or frosting knife. Place imperfect, cut or small berries evenly. Cut berries no thicker than half an inch or so for this layer. Press gently into whipped cream. Add more whipped cream to even layer out; spread evenly with spatula. Leave cake sides alone for now.

Carefully place second layer on top of first, top side up. Spread top with whipped cream. Now use remaining whipped cream for sides. Make it pretty with spatula or frosting knife.

Place largest, most beautiful strawberry in the center of the top of the cake. Add remaining strawberries evenly around. Sing Happy Birthday! (optional)

Take a picture; it is so pretty! (required)

Refrigerate after serving. When serving, cut straight down with very sharp knife, using sawing motion.

A recent visit to the Volunteer Park Conservatory yielded many, many photos of perfectly blooming flowers and plants. This cactus flower was a few inches across, almost as wide as my hand.

Visit Ruby Tuesday, Color Carnival and Window Wednesday after you browse around here. Hope you enjoy your stay! To return to the main blog, just click on Sara’s Fave Photos above.

Saw these tulips the other day at Pike Place Market in Seattle. The displays were mind-bogglingly beautiful. I love, love, love this photo and have tagged it Best Post of the Week.

Visit Ruby Tuesday, Color Carnival and SOOC, or straight out of the camera, after browsing around here. If you’d like to get back to the latest post, just click Sara’s Fave Photos, above.

This display of tulips outside of Roozengaarde in the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival was the ultimate for me. I just couldn’t get over it. The enormous planting outside their gate was filled with the most spectacular displays of tulips I ever saw. Yes, the $4 admission to the totally magnificent displays inside was well worth the money, but this group of brilliant colors was the most amazing sight of the whole day, for me.

Photo note: For some reason, the technology of reproducing flower color isn’t always perfect, especially blue/purple tones. These purple tulips were the purest true purple in the world, but they look a little mauve-y or magenta here. Sorry, I tried.

Visit Ruby Tuesday for more red magnificence, and Color Carnival for more spectacular colors. And click on Sara’s Fave Photos to go back to the top of the blog.

Before the main event at the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, even the roadside produce stand got into the act with these potted tulips, harbingers of tulip ecstasy to come.

Visit Macro Monday and Mellow Yellow Monday for more close ups and yellow splashes of cheerfulness. And Blue Monday covers the other third of the color wheel for us! Color Carnival has more brilliant color, of course. Ruby Tuesday has lots of red, red, red for you.

To return to the full blog with my latest post on top, click on Sara’s Fave Photos above.

Still in a rose mood, longing for warm, sunny weather. This is my favorite rose, Double Delight. I read that it was a sport and almost not pursued. The petals get stronger color in more intense sunlight. This is one of the ones I planted last summer. The 18 bushes are leafing out well, but it’s just too rainy to get a photo to show you right now. I do have high hopes for later in the year.

Visit Mellow Yellow Monday for more cheerful splashes of yellow, and Ruby Tuesday for more ruby redness. Color Carnival has the brilliant color combos. Try them all! Click on Sara’s Fave Photos above to return to the full blog with my latest post on top.

A recent visit on a rainy day to the Volunteer Park Conservatory was filled with Spring flowers, and also these tropical beauties, Anthuriums. Exciting, aren’t they? My mom used to grow them in South Florida, so I’m always partial to them.

Visit Ruby Tuesday for more red visions, Color Carnival for more brilliant color, Window Wednesday for windows and doors, and SOOC for more straight-out-of-the-camera shots.

These two checkered tulips or fritillaria are ruby colored; perfect for Ruby Tuesday. They came up very well, this second year, as did the sturdy white hyacinths behind them. Oh, the garden is really beginning!

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This early spring shot of Lake Garrett Park has those great Red Twig Dogwood branches decorating the scene. Visit Ruby Tuesday for more luscious redness of all sorts.

Weekend Reflections has more intriguing reflections waiting for you, too.