Hello Spring
Spring has finally sprung in The Big Smoke so I thought I would run some lovely signs of spring first. I’m always surprised at how elated I am when I see the first buds on the trees and then somehow, it seems that from one minute to the next BOOM, we have blooms. It’s like spring explodes into nature; trees go from no leaves to full leaves, bulbs spring up, lilacs bloom and everything is glad to be alive. Finally.
We had my family Easter dinner in mid-April because my brother and family always have other plans on Easter Weekend. I don’t mind having these holiday dinners at a different time, things are generally cheaper, it’s fun to have the festivities again (we had an Easter Egg Hunt) and it gives a good excuse to get together regardless of missing the holiday. Win-win.
We made a couple of BBQ’d Herbes of Provence chickens which always turn out exceptionally well, even though we remove every bit of skin it’s super moist and flavourful (I can’t believe I haven’t done a post about this flavourfull chicken, but here is a photo of the bird on the BBQ). And of course, this wonderful dish pairs so well with Susur Lee’s Singapore Slaw (aka 19 Ingredient Slaw) that I made it again. We also had some lovely roasted sweet potatoes.
And of course, the dessert: Strawberry Shortcake made with a lovely Angel Food Cake. My very first scratch Angel Food Cake. I always hesitated to make this cake because my MIL warned me about how difficult and finicky it was. So as she did, I used a mix. Strange but true. I hadn’t thought about an Angel Food Cake in a lot of years (she’s been gone for more than 15 years) but I wanted a light cake with little to no fat and this fit the bill. Now to find a recipe which doesn’t use 14 or 16 egg whites! I found this recipe created by Anna Olson for a light chiffon cake using 8 egg whites. Perfect.
Now you know me by now that I generally don’t have a lot of dessert eaters, so when I chose a dessert (whether it be slightly better for you than ordinary) I always make it smaller. Who needs left overs? So I figured out the volume of the 10″ tube pan Anna used and cut it in half to fit my 8″ spring form pan! Clever? I must warn you, that the tube pan is used to help bake this light, airy meringue-like cake through the centre; my small spring form was just the right size and it baked relatively evenly. I would not recommend going larger as your edges will dry out and your insides will be runny. Anyway, food for thought!
I got a nice crumb on the cake, the bottom of the spring form had a harder time releasing due to the little dimples in it, so next time, I will line it with a piece of ungreased parchment, that should do the trick. Oh, and it’s really important not to jump around the oven like a mad dance, or even open the oven door during the first 20 minutes of baking. Also note that although this pan is smaller, it did take a bit longer to bake through, probably because there wasn’t the chimney effect heating the centre through. And having said that, I’d do it again in an instant, it’s a lovely light-feeling dessert.
You’re probably wondering “what the heck is stabilized whipped cream?” Well, maybe only some of you. I was looking for a way to make this cake up a few hours in advance and not have the whipped cream fall flat and runny on me. It’s really rather easy, 1 tsp of gelatin in about 3 tbsp cold water, nuked until gelatin melts complete, cooled down but not set and drizzled into the whipped cream with (1 tbsp icing sugar and 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract) as you’re whipping. So easy and it sets the whipped cream ever so slightly so it won’t go all sloppy and meltie. You can’t taste the difference.
Ingredients:
Serves 4-6 from an 20 cm or 8″ spring form pan
- 1/2 cup cake and pastry flour (less protein than bread flour)
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 4 large egg whites, room temperature
- 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
- pinch of salt
- 1/4 cup icing sugar, sifted
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 236 mL (1/2 pint) whipping cream, stabilized as above
- Strawberries, to serve
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 163° C or 325° F.
- Sift the flour and granulated sugar twice and set aside.
- Whip the egg whites with the cream of tartar and salt until foamy, then gradually add the icing sugar, whipping until the whites hold a medium peak when the beaters are lifted. Stir in the vanilla.
- Sift in the flour and sugar mixture to the whipped whites in 2 additions and using a whisk to fold in the flour evenly and easily. Scrape the batter into a 8-inch ungreased spring form pan, spread it to level and bake the cake for 40-45 minutes, until it springs back when gently pressed (try not to open the oven before 25 minutes).
- Cool upside down (this is apparently important so the cake doesn’t deflate and fall). Wait until it is thoroughly cook (I’m not kidding) to remove from pan (you must cut it out with a clean knife). To slice the cake in half, use an unserated blade and cut with short delft strokes until full severed.
- Serve the cake with whipped cream and berries, if you wish. The cake will keep, well wrapped (not refrigerated – it will dry it out) for up to 3 days.
[…] Idea + Cookie Dough Balls adapted from:Â The Girl Who Ate Everything Cheesecake adapted from: Exclusively Food Cookie Crust Recipe: Choc Chip Uru’s Chocolate Chip Cookies” Whipped Cream:Â Kitcheninspirations […]
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[…] Idea + Cookie Dough Balls adapted from:Â The Girl Who Ate Everything Cheesecake adapted from: Exclusively Food Cookie Crust Recipe: Choc Chip Uru’s Chocolate Chip Cookies“ Whipped Cream:Â Kitcheninspirations […]
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[…] still soft and delicious. I covered it in whipped, stablised cream which was a tip that I got from Eva’s clever post here. It is where you add a bit of gelatine to the whipped cream to set it so that it doesn’t melt […]
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The cake look delicious! Beautiful strawberries!!
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Thanks so much. Welcome to my blog.
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I love your cherry blossom tree Eva, it’s so pretty while in bloom! Reminds me a bit of the crab-apple tree in my yard growing up. It was always so pretty this time of year!
Also, I love your angel food cake! I’ve never made one from scratch. Always seemed a bit too ambitious. But you make it look so easy! I hope I can replicate your cake sometime soon!
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Thanks Amber, we have an amazing crab apple just outside my kitchen window and it’s gorgeous now that it literally burst into bloom!
I hope you will try the angel food cake, it was a lot easier than I imagined.
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Wow, some of those photos at the end – those trees look positively exploding with blooms. That’s crazy!! Boom, the blossoms appear, but sadly “boom” in no time they all seem to disappear again – and all that’s left is a few little petals blowing about in the wind 😦
I’ve always want to make an angel food cake – different types of cake base in general are on my “to do” list in fact. Yours looks very tasty Eva – however I was hoping I might offer a little bit of constructive criticism, which I sincerely hope you don’t take the wrong way (I often find that many people in the blogosphere just like to be patted on the back and told “great job”, and then they do the same to other people. Personally I want to learn and improve, so I hope people will always be honest with me!) – anyway, of course it could be the angle of the shot, or the light or anything like that, but I can’t help but feel that the strawberries kind of make the cake look a bit weighed down. If I was going to make it I think finding slightly smaller strawberries, or cutting them into smaller pieces would be perfect. Don’t get me wrong – it looks absolutely delicious though, so I hope you don’t feel insulted by my suggestion! 🙂
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Hi Charles, sadly the trees peaked and died within three days, but the park was packed with crazy lunatic drivers until Wednesday, making even riding my bike through a big headache!
I am never offended by your comments, and I do always appreciate constructive feedback. I totally hear what you’re saying about the balance of fruit to whipped cream, but believe it or not, it’s exactly the reaction I had hopped to achieve! We’ve just come out of a loooooong cold winter and these are the first California berries that actually tasted and smelled like strawberries so I wanted to celebrate them. I agree though, slicing them into 3-5mm thickness might have balanced the photo a bit more, but I wanted BANG! Thank you, as always for your generous comments and feedback, they are equally appreciated.
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Ah, fair enough – I can understand wanting to have a “smack you in the face with strawberries” thing going on… our stores are saturated with flavourless Spanish strawberries grown in poly-tunnels year round, so God knows it’s always wonderful when outdoor-grown French strawberries hit the shelves!
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Spring is taking its sweet time here so I doubt we’ll have local berries until the end of June! Brrrrrrr!
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Gorgeous looking cake, can never have too many strawberries. Thanks for the garden tour. I hope my white trillium blooms, a friend gave me a small plant last year, did not think it survived but I see a few leaves so I am hopeful.
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Thanks Norma, Trillium is Ontario’s Provincial Flower, so it’s highly coveted, and protected here. I’m not sure how it got into our backyard, but it was likely transplanted (not by me), but I’m so happy to have it.
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Glad to see that spring has arrived for you up there and thanks for sharing the lovely images. Hopefully summer will continue to hold off for your visit down south.
btw…(and not to be redundant) that strawberry shortcake does make me happy. 🙂
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Thanks Jed, I’m really excited about our trip. It’ll make an incredible blog post.
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Thank you for the cherry blossom pictures Eva, they are beautiful!
and thank you for the stabilized cream tip, I never knew that a little gelatin could do that!
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I’m do happy to have helped Sawsan. The cherry blossoms don’t last long, I think Saturday was their peak, by Wednesday, they were gone.
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I love the look of the chunky strawberries Eva – so great! What a fun tip about adding a touch of gelatin to the cream – I must remember that – I suspect it will come in handy for sure. We are both on a spring wave Eva… I too have by walking through parks and clicking away. Spring is beautiful everywhere I’m sure but there’s just something about the coming of spring in Canada that may just be… extra special ;-).
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I’m with you Kelly, it’s the long hard winters we have (particularly you) that makes spring that much more appreciated and adored. I’ll tell you though, I could definitely do another round like 2011 winter/spring, now that I can live with!
Thank you for your lovely words.
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It just smells like spring outside (finally!)..with the freshly mowed grass and all the flowering trees and bushes! Your Easter cake looks terrific…perfect for spring. I usually use Whip It to stabilize my whipped cream…but it’s nice to have a back up plan 🙂
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Hi Liz, I’m not familiar with whip it, but thanks for the tip. Yes, the foliage is quite gorgeous, I can hardly wait to see my lilac bloom. The crab apple tree is ready too, but I’m hoping it will wait until we return this after the w/e.
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Beautiful cake! And I had no idea what stabilised whipped cream was until you explained it but that’s very useful, especially since we don’t have air conditioning and summers get really hot!
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Thank you Lorraine. I am very surprised that A/C is not standard in Australia; have you not had super hot summers long? I have to admit, I would not be nearly as cheery as I am if it not were for A/C. Or likely married 27 years!!!!
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I’m in love with these photos but where’s the photo of the bird on the bbq? 🙂
Your homemade angel food cake looks smashing when used as a shortcake. To die for.
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Thanks so much Maureen for pointing that faux pas out, I’ve linked it up now. I’m definitely going to have to post that fabulous recipe here.
Thank you kindly for your beautifully flattering words.
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I had never heard of stabilized whipped cream. Learned something new today. Thank you. And your cake looks fabulous. Congrats on making it from scratch! And I love all of your photos! They look so springy. My favorite is our relaxing space outside with the fire though. Looks so cozy and romantic. 🙂
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Thanks Kristy, I read of stabilized whipped cream a while ago and was surprised that it’s natural and not stabilized with chemicals.
I love our little backyard oasis too, thank you for your lovely words.
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I can’t believe the snow has finally melted and that you have blue skies above you. Surely it won’t snow again until the end of the year. How lovely to see all those blooms. So amazing to me that after such a harsh winter, there can be life. I like the sound of your chicken dish. Will you be posting that recipe? And the cake with all those strawberries is just gorgeous xx
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Thank you so much Charlie, it is hard to believe that only a month or two ago everything was under snow and there was little hope for spring! It sure makes me so happy to see such a velocity of life spring up this time of year!
Yes, I shall certainly post the chicken recipe, it’s a BBQ staple in our house in the summer when I don’t want to turn on the oven inside (it’s great in a roasting pan in the oven too).
Thank you for your kind words about the cake, I was very pleased in how it turned out.
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I love the fact that you made this little cake – my family does not have too many dessert eaters either, and cakes especially faced trash cans at the end of their short life span. This cake looks perfect, and Spring! Boy, am I glad!!!
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Thanks so much Minnie, my nephew polished it off, so I needn’t have worried about left overs.
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As children, when our parents took us out to dinner, we kids checked the menu to see if strawberry shortcake was listed under Desserts. Things went so much smoother for our parents when it was. And I still love them to this day, though I rarely indulge. Needless to say, Eva, you final photos has set my mouth to watering! You really made a masterpiece in my eyes. And you made your own Angel Food Cake!!! What an impressive dessert to set before your guests and a perfect ending for an Easter Dinner. Well done!
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Thank you for your lovely and such flattering words, John. It’s a rather simple dessert but it really hit the spot. I can totally see why you would love it so. The angel food cake was so much easier than I had thought, I know I will be making it again and again.
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You are so patient with your plants and trees Eva! But I guess you start somewhere and forget about it and suddenly beauty takes you by surprise. Lovely fat strawberries. The size of those berries make think the isn’t a cake to be eaten timidly, but with gusto 🙂
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Thanks Genie, the berries were nice and plump and not badly flavoured considering they were from California, quite a long way from here.
Ah yes, the garden does take some patience, but it’s worth it.
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Your spring photos are gorgeous my friend but that cake defines spring 🙂
Yum!
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
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Thanks CCU, my nephew enjoyed it, that’s for sure!
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Eva, I have made several times something called Angel cake (the recipe was from an old American cookery book, so I cut the sugar amount at least by half automatically 😉 ). It was really delicious and I couldn’t believe that egg white cake could be so good and soft. I have already prepared it several times with different flavour versions, but never had such an extraordinary idea as yours! Your cake looks gorgeous and so elegant! A complete change. I’m not fond of whipped cream, but I already see many other cream possibilities to fill this cake.
I think if I had such a place just outside my house I would never go out for a drink 😉
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Thank you for your lovely compliments, it’s very nice to have such a pleasant outdoor space.
I hope you will post your recipe for the cake, I am always looking for recipes that use less sugar, it’s much healthier that way.
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Eva I have to agree with your late MIL. Angel food cake is not worth the effort it takes to make it from scratch. If it works, it’s just sugary fluff. I made this huge angel food cake once. It looked magnificent and tasted like cotton candy. We each had a serving with whipped cream and fresh fruit. Then it sat under the cake dome for two days and when my husband started looking for some cookies I ended up dumping the rest of its fluffy magnificence into the trash. How smart you are to make only a small cake. How lucky to have a nephew for dinner.
It was 28C here yesterday and last night the air conditioning kicked in. I almost wished it hadn’t. All day long I was soaking up the heat. The joy you felt with the arrival of spring I just went through myself. Of course I don’t have a picture diary of it. Beautifully done BTW! We deserve some warmth and blue skies after such a long winter.
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Hi Zsuzsa, it was not as complicated as I expected; I do agree that the mix versions are just like eating cotton candy, this recipe is not quite so ‘fake’ textured. It’s too bad your experiment with the cake didn’t work out as expected, I bet it’s not often you have to chuck something!
It’s finally nice and warm in Toronto too, but all the buds are blooming at the same time; I guess we aren’t the only one’s fed up with winte!
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That cake looks lovely. And where did you get the table top fire lamp? I love that.
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Thank you for the lovely compliment. The fire lamp was purchased at Kitchen Stuff Plus in Toronto. They don’t have this style any more, but there are others http://www.kitchenstuffplus.com/Categories/326-Lanterns-And-Lamps.aspx/1
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Thank you!
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Stabilized whipped cream, now how about that! Learn something new every day, thanks. This is surely a dessert worthy of a holiday or celebration, just beautiful. 🙂
Also, I adore your blossoming trees! We have an apple tree in our front yard and its blossoms are just about to come forward — many of the trees are late this year due to the late snow and temps — but spring finally feels as though it’s arrived. 🙂
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Thank you kindly Judy, we have a crab apple tree in our back yard and it’s just about ready to burst! I can hardly wait.
I’ll be making this cake again, it’s a lovely texture and not too sweet.
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Your angel food cake turned out beautifully. Thanks for sharing your photos. I laughed at your comment about your lilac. I’ve threatened a few plants that if they didn’t grow properly they were going and all the sudden they improved. 🙂
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Thank you Karen. I was absolutely bowled over when I saw how many blooms my little orphaned lilac had! I’m so glad I didn’t pull it out last fall!
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Looks like you had more sun than we did this weekend. We had the fireplace going. That is one great looking cake.
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Thanks Greg, it’s been getting warmer and warmer day by day, and the sun was incredible all weekend. Everything seems to have bloomed all at once.
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I love strawberry shortcake! Yours looks great and love your photos!
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Thank you for you lovely compliment M&M.
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Love your Japanese Cherry Blossom tree Eva. This looks like it would have been a perfect dessert this weekend Eva. I will have to try the angel food cake on day soon as it looks so lovely and did you say healthy?
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Hi Barb, the cake contains no fat, so it’s better than most, although it does have flour and sugar. I’m not sure how reducing the sugar would affect the outcome but the slices are so small that it probably doesn’t make much of a difference.
The tree out front had blooms for a surprisingly short time, three days! It was disappointing, but it is spectacular when in bloom.
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Beautiful spring photos, Eva.
The angel food cake looks splendid!
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Thank you kindly Angie, the blooms make me very happy indeed.
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I enjoyed seeing the pictures of all the trees and flowers around your home … I couldn’t live totally surrounded by concrete even though I’m not much of an outdoor person.
I’ve only tried making an angel food cake once with a batch of egg whites from my freezer and was very disappointed with the result. It was a long time ago and I don’t know what I did wrong but it didn’t look anything like your beauty. I seem to recall that it never freed up from the tube pan I made it in though. Maybe one day I’ll try again using your recipe.
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I know what you mean Maria, you need nature’s beauty to remind us that there is good in the world!
To be honest, the cake was easy enough to make, and I really liked the texture, compared to a cottony mix version. I watched a video tutorial and it didn’t look like it was easy to come out of then pan either.
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