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.

This is one from the archives. I remember it was a very hot day in northern California, and the eggs just looked so beautiful before we lit into them. I am glad I preserved them for posterity. I was just learning how natural light is so superior to flash, and this soft light really proves it.

Today’s Thursday Challenge is FOOD (Meals, Restaurants, Eating, Vegetables, Unusual Foods, Cooking, BBQs…). To return to the full blog with my latest post on top, click on Sara’s Fave Photos above.

This is the plate I made for New Year’s eve to go with our ritual crab and creamcheese dip and potato chips. I love veggie platters. People only really eat raw vegetables when they are cut up pretty and on a plate in front of them. This assortment is especially fine because the carrots and purple cabbage came FROM MY GARDEN. That is so exciting to me, especially since we had a serious cold spell last month. But the cabbage waited in the fridge and the carrots waited in the ground! Their green tops were ratty from the freezing weather but the carrots are just fine, if not even better than in the summer. I will grow them again, that’s for sure.

For more ruby redness seen in photos around the world, visit Ruby Tuesday. And Color Carnival is back!

Scallions (green onions) are super easy to grow and have lovely flowers as a bonus, which easily reseed new little scallions. This post is for Thursday Challenge, and the subject this week is “Youth.” And for Think Green Thursday, growing your own food is the greenest thing I know. This photo, like most of the posts on this blog, is straight out of the camera, or SOOC.

Must be away again for a few days; see you on my return.

These Meyer lemons fell off a tree in Sonoma County, California and made their way to Seattle, courtesy of a visitor. Lemon trees have thorns but do an unusual thing: they can flower and fruit at the same time. Those flowers smell so sweet!

Thursday Challenge this week is “Food.” And Think Green Thursday is always about living lightly, to my mind, so eating extra lemons from a friend’s tree is pretty “green” to me.

I know it’s a little late, but had to share our neighbors’ Halloween display for Ruby Tuesday (go there for more ruby redness). There actually were even more spiders spread around their front yard. It was a truly creepy effect. I loved it! And visit Window and Door Wednesday for more interesting window views.

PLEASE IGNORE IF READ BEFORE: Readers arrive on different days, so I’m repeating about the 2009 Photoblog Awards. If you like my photos, please vote for me and/or leave a comment in the link  below. You have to register (name and password only) and then click on the word Vote in the upper left. Thanks very much! Photoblog Awards 2009

You’ve gotta love backyard tomatoes. It’s just remarkable how different they are from store-bought, even those “on the vine” ones with the green tops they sell these days. The complexity and magnificence of the flavor of a homegrown tomato is just . . . well, words fail me. Hope the photo helps a little.

For more fascinating macros, visit Macro Monday. For more photos with at least a splash of yellow, visit Mellow Yellow Monday. And heck, let’s get Ruby Tuesday in on this as well! Anyone for more bright colors at Color Carnival?

Well, the tomatoes aren’t too big, but in Seattle any ripe tomato is a wonder some years. The little yellow ones were from a volunteer plant in a flowerbed, unlike the started plants I bought and planted in black containers back in May, and sure enough, the volunteer is far bigger and happier in every way. It’s a puzzlement, because the plants in the ground last year refused to ripen, even cherry tomatoes. Sigh.

There’s also broccoli rabe in the basket. I planted seeds pretty early, and they were so spindly, went to seed right away, but THOSE seeds grew and now I have these huge, healthy plants, yielding like crazy. I like it steamed with olive oil, soy sauce and lots of garlic.

Happy Ruby Tuesday!

Even with the warm weather we had this summer, it’s not too easy to ripen tomatoes in Seattle. But of course, I must try. The small ones seem to have the best shot at it, but I’m still learning with tomatoes, as with so many things. These are Husky cherry tomatoes, and the plant is particularly strong and sturdy. The tomatoes aren’t bad, either. I slice them on a sandwich, even the small ones, for flavor that can’t be beat.

Interesting fact: See the little star-shaped caps at the stems? There are five points. Fruits (and tomatoes are fruits, I think actually berries) that have patterns of fives, like an apple’s seeds if you cut it crosswise, are USUALLY safe to eat and not poisonous.

Visit Think Green Thursdays for more ways to live lightly on the earth, besides food gardening, that is.

Picked these this week. Not everyone knows about lemon cucumbers, upper right. Pick them before they get bright yellow, when they really look like lemons! They are quite delicate and delicious.

Happy Macro Monday, Mellow Yellow Monday, and Ruby Tuesday. We are off camping and will return in a few days. Ta-ta!