ANGELS AND OLD COUNTRY ROSES

Welcome to an Angelic Christmas Tea! 

I needed my Old Country Roses China since you were coming for tea!  Tis the season for Old Country Roses!

The Dining Room table:

ORANGE CRANBERRY TEA CAKE FOR THE HOLIDAYS

I have made this tea cake so many times!  It is a "tea cake" in the truest sense of the word!  It has tea in the cake!  I got this recipe from my Mom and I think it is from the 60's! 

What I do is double the recipe and actually the cake above is the smaller one of the two cakes...the larger one was put in the freezer. 

Besides traditional round or square cakes - there are many other types of tea cakes!  Some are individual cakes dipped in icing and other are "loaves" which are sliced.  This Orange Cranberry Tea Cake is made in a tube pan.  I double it and make 1 large and 1 smaller one which is the one pictured at the top of this page. The cake is very moist and delicious.  Make sure you chop the cranberries open!

You will need: 1 1/2 cups water, 1 cup orange juice, 4 teabags/black tea, 3 cups sifted flour, 1 tsp baking soda,a/2 tsp salt, 1 cup sugar, 4 TB soft butter, 2 eggs, 1 cup chopped cranberries, 1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  In a small sauce pan bring the water and juice to a boil. Add the teabags and brew 5 minutes, remove the teabags...let it cool.

In another bowl, combine flour, soda and salt. In a larger bowl, mix sugar, butter and beat in eggs.  Now beat in the cool tea mixture, add flour and soda mix and mix till blended.  Stir in cranberries and walnuts.

Turn into a tube pan and bake for 1 hour- watch for burning the top. Cover with foil if browning too much!  Cool 10 minutes

Brush with orange juice (I forgot this) and sift confectioners sugar on top(I forgot that too)  The confectioners sugar will make it really pretty if you remember to do it!

TRYING PERSIMMONS PART #2 AND MY ALL TIME FAVORITE BOOK FOR PREPARATION FOR THE HOLIDAYS!

Let's face it -nobody has ever done a more complete book for preparing for the Holidays than the 1989 classic "Martha Stewart's Christmas" Book.  I pick it up year after year and reread the recipes and look at those wonderful photos! 

 Last week I bought 3 persimmons at the grocery store and on Thanksgiving Day I decided to make Martha Stewart's Steamed Persimmon Pudding!  I have 4 lidded pudding containers and used the 2 quart size for this pudding:

The smell of the persimmons - by the way - these must be very ripe indeed- was a little like a mango...

I used a lidded turkey roaster and filled it with water 1/2 the way up and steamed the pudding for 2 hours 15 minutes!

It came out looking wonderful!  I followed Martha's instuctions and made the lemon sauce which I poured over the pudding...

The cinnamon spice gave it a light spice flavor that was very nice!

A very pretty presentation and also unique!

MR. RED FOX IS BACK!

Last Saturday morning I had about 6 squirrels eating peanuts outside our back yard.  When I looked out the door here he was in the lower center  photo almost at my back door and he almost got one of the squirrels!  He climbed up that privacy fence and over in seconds!  Nothing to it...

Mr. Squirrel says:  "Here comes trouble- run for your lives!

Running up this tree works well!"

PUMPKIN AND DATE SCONES FOR SEASONAL SATURDAY

I have had the recipe for a long time. It is for Pumpkin Date Scones and  I had never tried it and it looked old so it was time to give this a try!

These were easy to bake this morning before work!  Actually I had gotten some fresh Medjool dates - I love those and always eat them. When I was a little girl I had dates once and decided they were wonderful.  My step-grandmother Buchanan sent them to us from New Hampshire with peanut butter inside them rolled in confectioners sugar.  I was so impressed! 

This recipe called for self-rising flour.  It seems like everytime I buy it I waste it as it goes out of date so I used baking powder as recommended by Patricia Ann.

Here is what you will need:  1/2 cup sugar, 2 Tb butter, 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice (all spice), 1/4 tsp salt, 1 large egg, 1 1/2 cups chopped dates, 1 cup canned pumpkin and 2 cups self rising flour or 2 cups regular flour and 3 tsp baking powder

I am at 7,000 ft so I reduce my baking powder for high

altitude to 2 1/4 tsp.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.  I used crisco and flour on my cake pan to prepare it.  In a medium bowl, combine sugar, butter, spice, salt and mix at medium speed until creamy.  Add egg, beat, add dates and pumpkin and hand mix.  I had already chopped up my fresh dates and mixed them with my fingers in a small bowl with 2 tsp flour to keep them from sticking together! Gradually add flour and mix until blended.  Press into pan and pre-slice.  Bake 12-15 minutes.

Of course real English Clotted Cream is a dream come true for all scones! Did you know that clotted cream has 55% milk fat and devonshire cream has 48% milk fat.

I wish you a lovely weekend!  Bake away!

NICOLE SAYRE'S ANGELS!

Those of you who follow my blog know I am a big fan of Nicole Sayre!  I love her angels and have a few new ones to show today. 

This cute little angel has others pieces inside her lower "box" to celebrate all the seasons!

I hung this angel on my cup 

and saucer wall rack....

Wouldn't this one be cute on a beautiful Walnut Cake for Fall?  As a cake topper of course.

FIRST SNOW OF THE SEASON

Wednesday night as we started home it had began to snow....our first snow of the season really!  The next morning this was the scene out my dining room window as a few lilac

leaves try to hang on!

We have a large blue spruce in the corner of our yard where the squirrels live happily sheltered from the storms!