CC seed-cake

     I have carrots. What with the biweekly veggie box, and the weekly fruit box, I seem to always have produce rotting all around me. This semester is killing me, and I'm cooking much less than I'd like. Carrots have mostly just been peeled, sliced, and cooked along with ramen for the last month. Which is a shame, because these are very pretty, Nantes carrots care of Farm Fresh to You, fresh and fragrant, with some mud still on 'em. Lovely. But I've been craving sweet, and wanting to make a traditional Seed-cake for some time. Needing to, almost. Between taking Brit Lit 2 (We're in the Victorians now) and feeling a need for slightly more healthy but reassuring foods to eat with tea while studying, I googled "Carrot tea cake" to find something a bit simpler than the big, cream cheese-frosted American-type carrot cake, and something a bit more like banana bread, or the apple cake I made a few weeks ago.

      So we're not reading Jane Eyre (pity), but rather Charlotte Brontë's hysterical sister Emily's opus Wuthering Heights. Best guess, everyone, which I prefer. Nonetheless, I have relistened to Jane Eyre, courtesy of Librivox, read by the incomparable Elizabeth Klett. I feel both stimulated and reassured by a heroine as passionate, yet outwardly calm, as the titular Jane, and elements of the novel have shown up in bits and pieces of my recent creative life, including an NPC named Helen Burns and a craving for Caraway seed cake.

 

 Jane and Helen feasting with Miss Temple. Illustration by John Huehnergarth 1954

 (brazenly stolen from another blogger making seed-cake)

      At any rate, I found a recipe on Cooks.com, and added about 3/4 tsp caraway seeds (for the classic English seed-cake flavor, probably limited somewhat by the sweetness of the grated carrot), and 1/2 tsp of chia seeds, splashed with a bit of water, since chia sucks up moisture to make that . . . gel stuff they do.

      The name? Not terribly clever - Carrot-chia seed cake. The caraway is insinuated by the fact that I'm a purist (when it suits me), and the Brontës would definitely assume caraway seeds. Shortened to 'cc' to evoke a desperately needed injection of something (2 ccs of tea cake! Stat!)

       Pictures to come. Phonecam is busted to death, and I'm not used to Hex's camera and pic-sharing stuff yet.

Crafting

So I finally blocked the doily I knit something like a month and a half ago.



It's the first really frilly thing I've knitted, but I must say that I like knitting lace. We'll call it the first stop in a complete tea set, and see if that ever ends up happening.

Lapsang Souchong

I'll admit it. I don't 'get' lapsang souchong. It's a wood-fired black tea, sometimes known as the "Tea of Mystery". Because it's smoky, like the eyeshadow of femmes fatales, like the bars and offices in Noir movies, like Billie Holliday's voice. Problem is, as far as I'm concerned, it tasted oddly like steeped beef jerky. Now I loved beef jerky, but the lack of any kosher stuff has made me not have any for the last few years, but that doesn't mean I want to drink a hot cup of it.

But I found the most amazing idea - brewing up a really strong few cups and pouring it into baked beans, chili, autumnal soups . . . someplace where that liquid smoke actually makes sense - someplace where it belongs. So, anon, when I'm hungry and cold (it'll be a while) and feel like making baked beans, I won't bother with trying to go buy 'liquid smoke'. I'll make my pot of smoky-sweet, slightly peppery beans with lapsang souchong and some bacon salt, and serve them up with cornbread or biscuits. And the apartment will smell like a campfire the rest of the night.