Dandelion Cake

It’s finally spring, in my neck of the woods and the dandelions are out in full force! If you live in a warmer climate that me you might be out of luck for making this, but just bookmark it for next year! Or see if you can find some dandelions still blooming in a shadier spot or higher elevation. Either way you’re going to want to try this cake - it is one of my favourites and I wait all year to make it!

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In my opinion, the dandelion is one of the best plants out there. Every single part is edible, and offers health benefits. Maybe that makes this cake count as health food? I know a lot of folks consider them an annoyance in their lawns, but there is no downside to letting these “weeds” flourish. They add some cheery colour, provide food for humans and wildlife, and their deep taproot helps break up poor, compacted soil and improves the quality of the soil over time! There are so many different things you can use them for - I’ve written about a few already!

For this recipe you’re going to want to use the petals only. I’ve found the best way to do this is to use scissors, and cut through the green base of the flower (called the “receptacle”) and pick out as much of the green bits as you can. A little bit of green in the mix isn’t going to make a big difference, but leaving too much in can contribute a bitter flavour. For this recipe you’re going to need about 2 cups of flower petals. Don’t forget to save a few petals to decorate the top of the cake with when you are done (see note at the end of the recipe for some considerations regarding that).

Dandelion Cake

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup sugar

• 2 eggs

• 3/4 cup milk

• 3/4 cup oil

• 2 cups flour

• 1/2 tsp baking powder

• 1/2 tsp baking soda

• 1/2 tsp salt

• zest of one lemon

• 2 heaping cups dandelion petals

• 2 cups icing sugar (optional - for glaze)

• Milk/Lemon Juice (optional - for glaze)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9 inch round baking pan with parchment paper and grease sides.

2. Whisk together eggs, sugar, milk, and oil until mixture is completely combined and homogenous.

3. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl, and then add to the wet ingredients. Mix gently until no lumps of flour remain.

4. Add the lemon zest and dandelion petals and stir mixture until everything is distributed evenly.

5. Bake in a 350F oven until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Approximately 45 minutes to an hour. Baking times will vary, so keep an eye on your cake.

6. If you like you can combine 2 cups icing sugar with a few tablespoons of milk, yogurt, or lemon juice to make a glaze that is very nice on top of this cake. I like to sprinkle a few dandelion petals on top to make it look even more special, but one thing to know is that the second day some of the petals might have become fluffy (like the flowers do when they go to seed outside). I don’t find a difference in the taste if they do this, but if you are making the cake ahead it looks nicer to add the petals just before serving.

Quick Apple Scrap Cider

For my first foray back into blogging in over a year I’m starting with this rambling account of a fermentation experiment that went surprisingly well. I feel like I should include a bit of a disclaimer before we get too far down the line that the resulting ferment was an alcoholic beverage. If that’s not your thing, I’m not offended if you skip this one!

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Have you ever made apple scrap vinegar? It’s something I usually do when I have a lot of extra leftover bits of any type of fruit. If I am doing a large scale canning project, I usually add this as an additional step to get further use out of all the cores and peels. I might do a full scale post about how I make the vinegar sometime, but the short version is to cover your leftover fruit cores or peels with a sugar syrup, let it ferment covered on the counter for a week, strain, and then let that ferment oxidize on the counter until it turns into vinegar.

I started this project intending to make some more vinegar, but when I started to strain the jars the ferment smelled so delicious, I felt like it was worth tasting! To my surprise it tasted like a very nice sparkling hard cider, so instead of sticking to my plan I thought I’d give bottling it a try. I don’t have a real recipe to include here since the whole thing was more of an experiment, but I thought I’d share my process. It can be very difficult to reproduce your results when using wild fermentation, but it’s worth giving it a shot! I will definitely be trying this again at some point!

To Make Quick Apple Scrap Cider

1. Cover fruit scraps in jars with sugar and water. Use a ratio of 1/4 cup sugar to 4 cups of water, and make sure that all the fruit is submerged. Leave this on your counter for a maximum of one week. You should see lots of little bubbles at this point and it should smell pleasant.

2. Strain out the solids. At this time you will also need your bottles to be sanitized and ready to go.

3. Add 1 teaspoon sugar to each bottle and pour the cider in. This applies to bottles the size in the photo above. Use more if you want to do your second ferment in a larger bottle. We used plastic home brewing bottles because it is very easy to tell when a ferment will be ready to drink by how hard the bottle becomes. They trap the carbon dioxide well and we’ve been able to reuse them quite a few times. If you use glass bottles you will need to stay on top of “burping” them or else risk an explosion!

4. Leave the bottles on the counter for a day or two. You want them to feel very hard when you try to squeeze them (or nice and fizzy if you are using flip tops and burping them once a day). After they are ready put them in the fridge and enjoy whenever you like!

Carrot Top Cake

I hope you’re not getting tired of baking recipes! I promise I’ll come up with something else soon, but in the meantime I wanted to share this cake I made to celebrate my 10 year wedding anniversary with Mr. Forager. I started with a carrot cake recipe that’s been in our family for quite a while and tweaked it so it would work with carrot tops instead. I’m always interested in recipes that help use up the parts of our food that would ordinarily be composted. Carrot tops are actually really delicious. I’ve used them as a pesto ingredient, or thrown them in when I’m making soup stock before, but this would be my first time using them in baking. I’ve seen oil cake recipes using nettles and even lettuce, so I figured this would probably work and I am happy to say it really did!

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This recipe is similar to most other veggie cakes, but you’ll need a food processor or high powered blender to get the carrot tops to a fine puree. I add the carrot tops in with the oil for the recipe and puree that all together and then you don’t need to add any other liquids to the mix. The batter comes together really easily, and you can either bake it into layers and add icing, or just pour it into loaf pans if that’s going to be something you enjoy more. I think it would also be delicious as a simple loaf cake with a lemon drizzle on top.

The icing I used for the cake in these photos is an italian meringue buttercream flavoured with lemon. It’s delicious, but a little bit on the complicated side. I made it for a cake we were decorating at work and got to take some of the extra home. I think if I was doing this for an everyday sort of snack cake I would do something more simple, but for a special occasion I think this is a fantastic icing. I’m not going to be posting the recipe for it here because there are many others already online, and the recipe I used wasn’t my own.

I’m also including a recipe for a simple syrup to brush on the cake layers to keep them moist, but if you’re not wanting to bake the cake in layers you could easily use those flavours and some icing sugar to convert it into a drizzle to dress up a layer cake. I might try that next time!

As for the carrot tops, there isn’t really too much you need to worry about. Choose two bunches of carrots that look healthy and well hydrated. The best option is to support someone at your local farmers’ market, but there are also many grocery stores that sell carrots with their tops still attached. Carrot tops are sort of an unsung hero in the kitchen, and many people ask the farmers to take the tops off for them when they are buying their carrot bunches so you could probably even score some extra bunches for free! Last time I was buying carrots I was given an extra big handful of carrot tops when I told the farmer I actually wanted to keep mine.

The other flavours in this cake are lemon, thyme, and cardamom. You can use fresh thyme or dried, but fresh is going to have the most punch so if you can find some it’s worth it. I recommend having a little of the dried thyme on hand for decorating since I think the little leaves looked beautiful sprinkled on top of the cake. I also put a few blueberries on the top because I couldn’t think of anything else we had on hand to make a good focal point, and it was actually a really great flavour to add. I’d consider even doing a layer of blueberry jam in the middle of the cake next time to add more of that in.

Carrot Top Cake

Makes four six inch round cakes

Ingredients

For the Cake:

• 2 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cardamom
• 2 tbsp dried thyme, or one handful fresh thyme sprigs
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups oil
• 4 eggs
• juice and zest of one lemon
• carrot tops from two average sized bunches of carrots

For the Simple Syrup or Drizzle

• 1/4 cup sugar (if making simple syrup)
• 1 cup boiling water (if making simple syrup - if making drizzle reduce to two tablespoons)
• reserved thyme sprigs, or one tbsp dried thyme
• juice and zest of one lemon
• enough icing sugar to bring liquid to desired drizzle consistency

Instructions

To make the Cake:

1. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cardamom. If you are using dried thyme you can add it to these dry ingredients as well.
2. Blend the carrot tops, fresh thyme (but reserve the stems for later), oil, and lemon juice until mixture is a very fine purée.
3. Whisk together eggs, sugar, and vanilla extract until everything has turned to one homogenous texture. At this point add the pureed carrot tops and oil, and mix well.
4. Slowly mix in the sifted dry ingredients, and mix just until there are no large lumps. There will likely still be a few small ones, but that’s ok. I like to do this part with my hands so I can feel what’s going on with the mixture, but you don’t have to if that’s not your thing.
5. When baked pour into your desired shape of cake pan. This mix made four six inch round cakes for me, but you can pour it into two loaf pans, or one large rectangle. Just make sure you’re leaving room in your chosen baking pan for the cake to rise.
6. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit until a cake tester inserted comes out clean. For my six inch rounds this was about 25-30 minutes. It is a good idea to rotate the cakes in the oven at just over the halfway point so everything bakes evenly.

If you are icing a layer cake and want to make simple syrup:

7. Boil one cup of water, and dissolve the 1/4 cup sugar into it. Throw in the lemon juice and zest and reserved thyme stems (or dried thyme). It is a good idea to finely chop the thyme stems before throwing them in, but if you forget it’s not necessary. Allow to infuse until cool and then strain out the solids.
8. Use this syrup to brush on your layers of cake before icing them to keep everything moist. Extra syrup can be used in mixed drinks, or however you would normally use a simple syrup.

If you want to make a drizzle to ice your cake:

9. Boil water in a teakettle, and pour a few tablespoons of it over chopped thyme stems, or dried thyme. Allow this to cool and infuse for a while as your cake bakes and cools.
10. Strain out the solids from the infusion, and combine this with lemon juice, zest, and enough icing sugar to make a drizzle in a consistency that you like. Pour over cooled cakes, allow to dry before slicing, and enjoy!

Lilac Macarons with Rhubarb Ginger Buttercream

For the past few weeks my entire neighbourhood smells of lilacs. They are so abundant it seems like everyone’s yard has at least one shrub, and the public walkways are even lined with them. There are even a few feral shrubs that have self-seeded and are now growing along the highway and in some of the ditches. I usually do something each year to capture their beautiful aroma and create something sweet. In past years I’ve done flavoured sugar, and ice cream. This year it occurred to me that lilac would be a lovely macaron flavour.

Jump to the recipe.

I decided not to let the teeny issue of never having made macarons before stop me, and embarked on a few test batches. The general consensus seemed to be that while fiddly, macarons aren’t as difficult as their reputation would have you believe. I tried some basic ones with French meringue, but when I tried to make them that way with my lilac sugar it was too coarse and heavy to dissolve properly in the egg whites, so I decided to go with the Swiss meringue method, since that seemed to have a greater chance of getting everything dissolved. I bet that the Italian method would work really well here too and I might try that one next time.

The key thing I found with getting the texture right was making sure the mix was liquid enough before you finish the “macaronage” stage. My first few batches had some real problems with lumpy tops because I couldn’t get my mix to the right stage. I think I read so many times to “be careful not to overmix” that I was making the opposite problem. I also had to adjust some of the proportions and that helped me get the right consistency. Some of the recipes talked about a “honey” or “lava” consistency for the finished batter and I definitely found those images helpful. I think even this batch I just did could have been taken a little bit further, but they still ended up with fairly smooth tops.

I’m going to write this recipe as a bit of a choose-your-own-adventure where you can decide which meringue method works best for you. I will say that if you are using heavier sugar (like in this recipe) make sure you choose either Swiss or Italian or you’ll never end up with stiff peaks. I’m also going to suggest that you head on over to YouTube and watch some videos on your preferred meringue method (and a video of macaronage if you’ve never done these before) if you’re feeling a bit hesitant. There are very many different macaron methods, so which you use just depends on what you’re working with and what is most comfortable for you.

I’m not going into massive amounts of detail here with macaron technique, because I am not an expert. I think these macarons look pretty good, but there was still a bit of an issue I was having with hollow shells, so I am not the best resource when it comes to the technical side of things. I was such a fan of the flavours and overall result of these that I still wanted to share how I made them even if they weren’t technically perfect. I will share different tips and tricks that I found helpful as a beginner, though and I hope my explanations are complete enough. Please let me know in the comments if you have any questions!

The inspiration for the filling came from wanting to pair seasonal flavours together. I think that rhubarb and ginger are made for each other, and both of those pair so nicely with florals! Initially I thought I’d just fill it with a curd, but right before filling them I decided to change it up and use the curd in a buttercream. I think that was the right choice because the curd was just slightly too edgy for the lilacs as it was. The other thing I do when working with lilac is add a little bit of food dye. When you cook with lilac the delicate purples and pinks tend to shift to a sort of murky brown. I try to stay with natural colouring as much as possible when I’m cooking, but I also want my creations to be appetizing when I’m done with them too!

Lilac Macarons with Rhubarb Ginger Buttercream

Ingredients

For the Macaron Shells:

• 3 egg whites
• 90 g lilac sugar (can sub regular unflavoured sugar)
• 100 g finely ground almond flour
• 100 g icing sugar

For the Filling:

• 2 cups rhubarb
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 cup unsalted butter, plus three tablespoons
• 4 cups icing sugar
• 2 tbsp ground ginger

Instructions

For the Macaron Shells:

1. Sift together the almond flour and icing sugar for the macaron shells. Some recipes call for blitzing this mixture in a food processor and sifting again to make it even smoother, but I had no trouble using mine as is just sifting one or two times to remove the larger lumps.
2. For Swiss meringue (essential to do this or the Italian method if you are using heavy sugar like the lilac sugar) Heat a few inches of water to boiling in a pot large enough to hold the heatproof mixing bowl you are going to make your meringue in. Lightly whisk the egg whites and lilac sugar together and then put the bowl over the pot so that it is near to but not touching the boiling water. As this heats continue whisking the mixture until it starts getting very foamy. You want to make sure you’re getting all the sugar dissolved as you do this part. Don’t cook the eggs - you should be able to touch them with a finger and feel that they are warm but not too hot. At this point whisk the mixture on high speed until you reach glossy stiff peaks. One way to check if you are unsure is that if the bowl is turned upside down everything will stay put inside.
3. Fold your almond flour and icing sugar mixture into the meringue slowly. I like to do one third at a time. Continue folding until you have fully incorporated all the ingredients, and your mix has a honey-like texture. It is a little bit counterintuitive to beat so much air into the egg whites only to deflate it all at this stage, but it is necessary or you won’t be able to pipe it, or make nice smooth tops. Some recipes have you count the number of folds you do, but for me it was easier just to watch until the mix had the right texture - it slowly flowed and I could make a figure-eight with what was dripping off my spatula. You also want to gently fold in any gel food dye you are using at this point - ideally right before you are finished all your folds so you aren’t overmixing.
4. At this point preheat your oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. I know my oven runs cold, so I increased my temperature to 325 degrees.
5. Transfer the batter to a piping bag fitted with a larger circular tip. In my case I just chopped the end off a piping bag and did it with no tip because that was what I had on hand. Some of them weren’t perfect circles, but they were pretty close.
6. Pipe even circles onto a parchment or silicone lined baking tray. You can draw or print out a template if you like, but for me it was simple enough to freehand them. Pipe in a steady stream holding the bag completely vertically, and at the end give your piping bag a little twist to finish off the edge. If there is a little bit still sticking up it should settle down if your mixture was liquid enough.
7. Take your baking tray and bang it on the counter a few times to try to get rid of any air bubbles and to try to settle any irregularities you might have remaining on the surface of the shells.
8. Sprinkle a little more of the lilac sugar on the tops while the shells are still wet enough for it to stick. This is optional, but I think it looks beautiful and adds more of the lilac flavour and aroma to the finished macaron.
9. Leave the tray somewhere for about 30 minutes until the tops dry out - this is what creates the unique shape with the smooth top and frilly “feet”. Before they go in the oven the tops should be dry enough that touching them lightly with a finger leaves no impression.
10. Bake for about eight minutes, and then rotate the pan and bake for another seven. Bake times may vary with your oven, so watch them closely. You want them to be dry with no browning or caramelization.
11. After the shells have cooled put them in an airtight container in the fridge for a day or so (if you can be that patient) before filling them. They will age into an even nicer flavour, but if you are pressed for time they will still be delicious if you fill them right away.

For the Buttercream:

12. Chop rhubarb and stew with a little water on the stove. Add sugar and simmer until mixture is thick. Add egg yolks (remember to add a bit of hot to your eggs to temper them first) and cook on medium-low until thick. Don’t let this mixture boil. Press through a sieve and stir in three tablespoons unsalted butter. Allow to cool to room temperature or put in the fridge until you plan to make the buttercream.
13. Bring the rhubarb curd and the rest of the unsalted butter to room temperature and then cream them together in a stand mixer using the paddle attachment.
14. Add the powdered sugar and ground ginger (sifting out any large chunks beforehand) and continue to beat until there are no lumps. If your rhubarb for the curd was on the greener side add some gel food colouring (I did - remember that it’s better that food looks appetizing than being a stickler for absolutely no unnatural colouring!).
15. Pipe the buttercream in the centre of a macaron shell and sandwich it together with another. Ideally speaking each layer should be the same thickness as the others for a uniform and balanced look. I piped mine with the star shaped piping tip because that was all I had on hand so I tried to make it look unique. You can make yours look more traditional if you like, or experiment with whatever you think would look most beautiful!

Nettle Pancakes

Springtime is almost here! Or at least here in Kamloops we’re still waiting for the last of the snow to disappear, but I know from my newsfeeds that many of you live in warmer places. Some of you are even enjoying your first nettle harvests! Since I had a few cups from last year stashed away in the freezer I thought I’d share a recipe that woulds satisfy my craving for spring flavours, and maybe give you some inspiration.

There are a few recipes that I feel are my family legacy, and pancakes is definitely one of them. Big pancakes breakfasts have such a strong association with family for me that we decided a pancake brunch was the perfect meal to serve at our wedding. This recipe is strongly based on my mother’s, but with quite a few tweaks.

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You might be wondering - why nettles? Despite their sting, nettles are a fantastic spring green to forage for, and a bonus is that no one who has them on their land really wants them. When I gathered mine I secured an invite from a perplexed farmer who was more than happy for me to come hack away at the patch of nettles invading their beautiful garden soil. When you are gathering nettles make sure you wear gloves - I used rubber kitchen gloves - and long sleeves. I also used long handled kitchen tongs while picking, and when I brought them home to process. The good news is, once nettles are either dried or cooked they lose their stinging properties, so you can handle them without so much caution after that.

I find it really useful to blanch up all your nettles, and pack them into one cup portions for the freezer. I also roughly chopped mine before freezing so that they would be super easy to use in recipes. Throw in a bag in whatever recipe you would use spinach for. They work great in smoothies, curries, soups, and baking. Nettles have such a gorgeous green colour, and they hold their colour beautifully even after cooking or baking.

For these pancakes the green comes from blending the nettles in with the milk. The result looks like something that Luke Skywalker would drink, but I find it’s the easiest way to incorporate them for baking. I wanted the green to look more like food colouring than flakes of leaves, so I threw them both in my Vitamix blender, and pulverized it until it was smoothie-textured. I would think that you could probably sub out milk for another liquid if you are wanting these to be dairy free. I’ve never tried it, but I’m guessing it would be fine if a bit less rich.

The sky is the limit for toppings, but I used unsweetened vanilla whipped cream, maple syrup macerated strawberries, and candied lilac petals. I really wanted these to taste of spring, and I felt those flavours encapsulated the season for me.

I’ve also done these pancakes twice - once using grapefruit, and once using orange. I think I like the grapefruit better because it is a sort of unexpected flavour that pairs really well with the slight vegetal taste that comes through with the nettles. I was a little worried that either the taste or the colour would stop my children from eating them, but so far the “green pancakes” have been a hit for both the one-year-old and the four-year-old.

I think these have great holiday potential - a little late for your St. Patrick’s day celebrations this year, but perfect as “Grinch Pancakes” at Christmastime! I could also see using these if you wanted to make a bunch of other colours (not totally sure what to use for the other colours though) and have rainbow pancakes for Easter or Pride celebrations. Basically they are delicious, fun, and they add two cups of greens into your pancake meal so all in all it’s a total win in my books. If you try them out let me know what you thought in the comments!

Nettle Pancakes

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 cups sifted or all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup oil
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 grapefruit, zest and juice only
• 2 cups stinging nettles (blanched and frozen - can sub frozen spinach if no nettles are available)
• 2 cups milk

Takes 30 minutes, serves pancakes for a family of four.

Instructions

1. Begin by heating your griddle or nonstick frypan, or heating butter/oil in a regular frying pan. You want it to be preheated well before you pour any batter.
2. Mix dry ingredients together.
3. Thaw nettles and drain of excess water. Blend milk and nettles together to a smoothie-like consistency.
4. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and add eggs, oil, vanilla, grapefruit, and milk. Mix just to the point where the batter is well combined and there are no lumps.
5. Ladle out the pancake batter onto the pan to your desired size. Make sure you keep a good amount of space around them for ease of flipping and because these do tend to puff up a bit.
6. Your pancakes are ready to flip when you see bubbles popping up in the middle, and when the outside edges are less shiny with bubbles that pop there staying open.