Earl Grey Chiffon cake from Hellen Rennie

 Esther this year asked for an Earl Grey Chiffon Cake.  I like baking cakes, so I said I would make that if she sent the recipe.  It is a lovely, light sort of cake, similar to sponge, but softer.  The video below is where I learned it, and below that is my transcription.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=2IqQkouHYag&feature=youtu.be

For the cake
Dry ingredients
256 grams cake flour (9 oz )
285 grams granulated sugar (10 oz )
1 Tbsp baking powder (14.7 grams)
1 tsp table salt or 2 tsp Diamond Crystal Kosher salt (5.7 grams)

Wet ingredients
5 large egg yolk (about 90g)
177g freshly brewed and cooled earl gray tea (3/4 cups)
112g vegetable oil (1/2 cup )
1 tsp vanilla
Separate wet ingredients
8 large egg whites (about 240g)
1/2 tsp cream of tartar57 grams granulated sugar (2 oz)
* * *
For the icing
90g freshly brewed and cooled earl gray tea (6 Tbsp)
1 tsp unflavored gelatin
1 tsp vanilla
464g cold heavy cream (2 cups)
56 grams sifted powdered sugar or to taste (2 oz)
* * *
brew 3 Tbsp of loose tea in two cups of water. set aside.
preheat oven to 325 F.

sift dry ingredients together twice.

mix (use hand mixer) wet ingredients thoroughly, add in the wet tea leaves.

mix this with the drys, making sure nothing dry is left.

beat the egg whites. when foamy but droopy slowly add in sugar

fold egg whites into yolky flour mixture.
pour into tube pan. (no grease.)
tap sides to remove big air bubbles
put in hot oven. check at 60 minutes

for whipped frosting.
sprinkle gelatin on tea in microwave safe bowl. let stand 5 minutes. microwave in 10 second increments until completely dissolved. set aside.
sift powdered sugar.
combine vanilla with tea
whip cream. as it thickens add in the gelatin, then slowly add in the powdered sugar.

When the cake comes out of the oven, you want to hang it so that it cools fluffy and is less likely to condense itself a bit. (Our Worcestershire bottle proved a good way to support the tube pan).
Once it is cool, slide a knife or spatula around the edges, release the out shell of the tube pan first and then the base and tube.

Now decorate with the whipped frosting.

I made this again with a citrussy rooibus instead of earl grey and an added bit of cointreau to enhance the citrus flavor along with and partially replacing the vanilla. This was excellent.

I made it using a sencha green tea, with added matcha. I think I should have left off the matcha, and I know that I want jasmine instead of green to get the right flavour. Do not go cheap on your tea for flavour. If the tea smells bad, don't use it. I threw out a cup of green tea citrus-just too bitter--and though the sencha/matcha was good, it really was't quite right for getting across a nice light green tea flavor.

Basically, though, this is a happy cake recipe. Like sponge cake, it has a higher egg content. which I think translates to a more filling cake. The frosting is not too sweet, and I really like how the gelatin holds the whipped cream up.

Future

 We are all oarsmen: pulling toward the future, facing the past.

Afternoon Concerts

 Today I time travelled via Youtube.  Here are three concerts from three different delightful groups:

First up is Steeleye Span.

Next, Pentangle

Close with Oregon

Comment below. Thanks.

Hello Again

 It has been too long since I have posted, perhaps.

This year is an odd year--I had the joy of going on a walking pilgrimage, the first pilgrimage I have been on.

The Pilgrimage for Restoration is an annual event that I learned of September of the previous year when visiting St. Peter and Paul Basilica down in Chattanooga.  I went to the website, read stuff, and ultimately decided to go.  A sister of mine came too, which made the going easier.  

I practiced setting up the tent, did not pray enough, neglected my Night Before setting off arrangements until  *too late*, and did not walk enough in preparation.  We did pack well, though, and had more than enough food.  When we arrived at Auriesville we got to meet the Brigadier for the Company of St. Joan of Arc, which was the company we would be marching/walking with.  We also met some of the Company of St Stephen of Hungary.  Delightful people all, and you know you are likely in good company when someone invites the group to pray the Rosary as we go along.

It was a good start to an amazing weekend of pilgrimage.  Quickly when we reached the camp at the Lake George Battlegrounds, we were meeting more of the Company of St. Joan and we were found a place to set up tent.  So many people have gone year after year, and so many people were new to the pilgrimage.  

Our tent was set up shortly before sunset, right behind a great statue of St. Isaac Jogues.  Now he was a worthy Jesuit.  Mass would be said in the morning on the other side of that statue.

After setting up the tent, with a little mishap along the way that was rectified by an unusual use of a seam-ripper, Elizabeth and I walked (and ran) down to the Lake of the Blessed Sacrament.  This was where St. Isaac Jogues landed.  It was kind of awe inspiring to think that here we were and within a few days, we would be were he and other Christian martyrs met their earthly ends.

In the morning, we got up before the dawn, dressed for the day and packed up the tent.  It was still dark when we formed up with our battalion to go to Mass.  We had been asked if we wanted to bear the standard.  A new old one had just been gotten, it had been retired by a parish in France, if I remember the story correctly.  On it was a representation of St. Joan of Arc bearing the banner.  Now, the problem with a novice bearing the standard is that we did not know where we were going.  We were pointed in a direction, moved confidently, and had to be redirected.  We made it to mass in any case, and still the sun was not yet risen.  

It was quiet.  A canopy was over the area of the Altar at the feet of the gigantic statue of St. Isaac Jogues.  A bishop was seated off to the side as mass was being offered.  We all faced God together.  As mass was being prayed, almost insensibly the morning dawned.  It was grey and then golden.  St. Isaac was more discernible, and with his mutilated hand raised in blessing, he was also a powerful reminder of the Faith.  The homily given also pointed to the example set for us by those martyrs of old.  We would be roughly following their path.  I hope, that when I die, however it may be, I die in the Faith, in the Love of God and get to be welcomed like them into heaven.

Inversions in June

Years ago, while I was rejecting God, I was much more provocative. I would sometimes dress or behave in ambiguous modes.  Back in the days before HIV I was amused by a tee-shirt that said "How dare you assume that I am heterosexual."  I wasn't gay - just provocative.  I was wearing my brokenness on the outside regardless of how many other broken people I might damage more.  There were some, may God forgive me, that I damaged.

***

 From Wikipedia:

Pride is emotional response or attitude to something with an intimate connection to oneself, due to its perceived value.^{[citation needed]} Oxford defines it amongst other things as "the quality of having an excessively high opinion of oneself or one's own importance"^[1]

If I recall correctly pride was the cause of the fall of Lucifer.  I have at times expressed perhaps too much self admiration.  I am competent in some fields and I have a moderately broad band of playful learning.  I have been guilty of pride in this older sense.

The modern version of "pride" seems rooted rather in a lack of  security, a lack of self-acceptance, of self-esteem.  Some act out of pain, in denial of the difficult memories and realities.  Some fuzz their public persona by expanding, absorbing environmentally, without pause for integration.  

Perhaps I was also "proud" in my unacknowledged brokenness.

Why does it matter?

I have spent time with too high an opinion of myself.  I have also tried to evade myself out of shame.  There might be a certain amount of morbid amusement for someone observing me, but the acts and the observation are precisely that: morbid.  

And so Weimar America celebrates morbidity this month rather than health, termination of the young and old rather than life.  Perhaps it is Nero or Caligula's America.

It would be better to focus on health and life while acknowledging imperfection, aspiring to better, rather than setting the imperfection as the standard, aiming ever lower

Chesterton Saturday

 

“We can always convict such people of sentimentalism by their weakness for euphemism. The phrase they use is always softened and suited for journalistic appeals.

They talk of free love when they mean something quite different, better defined as free lust. But being sentimentalists they feel bound to simper and coo over the word “love.”

They insist on talking about Birth Control when they mean less birth and no control. We could smash them to atoms, if we could be as indecent in our language as they are immoral in their conclusions.”

 

“Obstinate Orthodoxy” – G. K. Chesterton

 

Prudence

As has been said elsewhere:

    When seconds count, the law enforcement is only minutes away.

Plan accordingly.