Plum and Nectarine Upside Down Cake

Our CSA from Hidden Villa is getting really good. Last week, we got boatloads of lettuce, potatoes, beets, and purslane, among other things. Our weekly CSA basket has added some surprises and variety to our usual medley of veggies from the Milk Pail. Consequently, citrusy purslane salads have become one of my new favorite things.

This week, we received a number of small plums in our basket, along with a recipe for Plum Upside Down Cake. We rarely back down from a baking challenge, especially if it involves cake, so we rolled up our sleeves and got to work.

 

First things first, Matt decided to make some homemade butter to bake with. Astute readers will remember that we (well, mostly Matt) embarked on this journey once before. Basically, you start with some cream in a jar, take turns shaking the jar until your arms give out, and after about 20 minutes the butter separates out from the buttermilk. Ta da!

Next it was time for the cake. I decided to throw in a nectarine as well, making this a Plum and Nectarine Upside Down Cake. The end result was really incredible -- the topping is essentially caramelized plums and nectarines that soak into a light and fluffy cake. There are little bits of crunchy caramel along the sides, too, and with a dollop of fresh, homemade whipped cream, it was heaven. I broke my rule of no dessert before dinner for this one, and it was totally worth it.

Recipe and directions after the photos...

Start with cream...

Shake shake shake!

Voila!

Homemade butter

Slicing the plums and nectarine

Layering the fruit on the carmel topping

Upside down cake served with fresh homemade whipped cream... YUM!

Hidden Villa's Plum and Nectarine Upside Down Cake

Topping:

4 T unsalted butter

3/4 cups brown sugar

4-6 ripe plums

1 ripe nectarine

Batter:

8 T unsalted butter

1 cup sugar

1 t vanilla

2 eggs, separated

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 t baking power

1/4 t salt

1/2 cup whole milk

1/4 t cream of tartar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Over low-medium heat, melt the butter in a sauce pan, stirring in brown sugar until it dissolves (this might take a few minutes of constant stirring before all of a sudden, you have a delicious-smelling caramel blob in the bottom of the pan). Carefully pour the sugar butter mixture into the bottom of a 9 inch baking pan. Working fast (the caramel will cool rapidly), arrange slices of plums and nectarines in the bottom of the pan.

With an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar together for the batter until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and beat in the egg yolks one at a time. Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and add them to the batter alternately with the milk. Whisk the egg whites with the cream of tarter until they are stiff enough to hold a form.  Fold the whites into the batter, spread batter evenly onto the pan to cover the fruit. Bake for about 25-35 minutes until the top is browned and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove and let cool for 15 minutes before turning over onto a plate.

Serve with fresh whipped cream!

Boulder Creek and Henry Cowell SP

Last Sunday, we met up with Brad and Jamee for some exploring. We headed up to Route 9 to check out Boulder Creek, a little mountain town among the redwoods that Brad had read about. We ate lunch at the Boulder Creek Brewery, which turned out to be an excellent choice for primarily one reason; everyone agreed that their fried avocado appetizer was utterly amazing. On the way back to the car, we stumbled upon a lumber jack competition and stopped to watch some log sawing and hatchet throwing events, which was drawing a sizable crowd of locals. Then we continued on to Henry Cowell State Park for a hike. The trail followed Fall Creek through the redwoods to an old lime kiln site, then up through old pines and manzanita groves back to the trailhead. We vowed to come back soon to check out the steam train line that runs through the park -- maybe next weekend!

Perfect Sunday morning light

Fried avocado is so yummy

Brad could not resist this sign

Timed log cutting is actually pretty entertaining 

 Henry Cowell State Park 

Santa Cruz weekend

Last weekend, temperatures climbed into the 80s near us, so Matt and I decided to head for the coast for some cooler weather. We decided to visit Swanton Berry Farms along Hwy 1 again, even though we'd just visited a few weeks ago. We sampled some more of their delicious snacks (strawberry cider and strawberry truffles this time), and then we picked several baskets of strawberries to take home with us. The berries from this farm are small and sweet, the perfect complement to summer.

Next we headed south to Santa Cruz, where we'd heard rave reviews about the Penny Ice Creamery. It's only a few years old but already has quite a local following. The line was out the door by the time we reached the shop at around 5:30pm. We tried a bunch of flavors before settling on a scoop of Whiskey Custard and Raspberry Chocolate Almond. YUM! I got too distracted by my ice cream to take a picture, so we'll just have to go back again sometime soon to properly document our Creamery experience.

Lassen Volcanic National Park

For Christmas last year, I bought Matt and myself a three-night stay at the newly built Manzanita Lake camping cabins up in Lassen National Park. The cabins are "rustic", so no electricity, but they are heated and have some basic furniture.  We were looking forward to a nice long weekend of hiking, sightseeing, and marshmallow-roasting.

We drove up I-5 on Friday, stopping in Chico for lunch, and then continuing up to the park. It was uncharacteristically rainy and overcast in the Bay Area that day, and so we had a pleasant but somewhat grey drive up into the woods. We drove though Lassen National Forest, which in the rain reminded me of Oregon with its fern-lined creeks and lush, quiet forests.

We arrived in Lassen National Park on the opposite side from where our cabin was, so we decided to drive the single park road its entire length to get to our site. Quickly, the road climbed up into the clouds, where we realized that it was actually snowing quite seriously. Lassen's park road climbs to 8,512 ft, making it the highest in the Cascade Mountains. We marveled at the winter wonderland we had stumbled into, thankful that the roads were still clear.

Lassen Peak was completely obscured in clouds, but as we descended back down on the other side of the mountain, the clouds parted and revealed a beautiful day at Manzanita Lake. Matt and I explored the trail around the lake before settling in around the fire that night.

The next day, I woke up early to do a little exploring in the morning light while Matt slept. The lake was teeming with ducklings and goslings, as well as lots of interesting lichens and mosses.

 

After breakfast, we explored several of the lakes and ponds along the main road, including Lily Pond and Summit Lake. We also took the interpretive trail around the aptly-named Devastated Area, where we learned that the last volcanic eruption from Lassen was only in 1915! That's not so long ago on volcano time, and apparently it was a massive eruption. Mudslides carried boulders larger than a car more than 3 miles from the blast site, and most the mountain blew itself up in the process.

Unfortunately, the main geothermal area (Bumpass Hell) was closed for boardwalk renovations, so instead we checked out Sulphur Works, a smaller geothermal area with a few boiling mud pots and sulphur vents. We attempted to find a trail promising to take us to Cold Boiling Lake, another area of geothermal activity, but there was so much snow on the ground that we couldn't even find the trailhead. Add to that our general lack of preparedness for snow (no hiking boots, few warm layers), we decided to skip the hypothermia this time around.

On Saturday night, we enjoyed completely clear skies and no moonlight, so the stars were incredible. It was quite cold (39F), so I tried to get a few long exposures before we retreated back to the fire for warmth. Even so, I was able to capture a couple of shooting stars.

On Sunday, we did a longer hike to Echo Lake. We enjoyed some scenic views of Lassen peak and somewhat chilly but pretty view of the lake.

After we got back to our cabin, we entertained the idea of renting kayaks out on Manzanita Lake, but again, it was quite chilly even at the campsite (elevation 5900 ft), so we decided to settle for a gorgeous sunset and campfire instead.

A complete set of photos from the trip can be found here.

New adventures along Highway 1

This past weekend, Matt and I inadvertently discovered that there was a section of Highway 1 along the coast that neither one of us had driven.  For no good reason, we've largely ignored the road between Pescadero and Santa Cruz up until now.  But on Sunday, after a trip to visit the goats at Harley Farms, we decided to head south to the Santa Cruz boardwalk.  Along the way we stopped at Pie Ranch, a magical little pie shop and organic farm, and then Swanton Berry Farm, a pick-your-own strawberry patch with the best strawberry lemonade we've ever had.  We also stopped to enjoy beautiful views of the Pacific along the way.  Needless to say, we never made it to the boardwalk -- fresh pie and strawberries proved far too distracting.

Pie Ranch turned out to be exactly what we hoped it would be

Inside Pie Ranch

One of many pie-themed offerings at Pie Ranch

Egg paraphernalia at Pie Ranch

   We stopped to take in the pretty blue greens of the Pacific on our way down the coast

Swanton Berry Farm is the oldest organic berry farm in CA

A plethora of delicious strawberry-themed snacks at Swanton Berry Farm