A Little of Everything

It was good to get back into the swing of sewing yesterday, but there was also some time in the kitchen. Ever since acquiring a 6-inch bundt pan, I've been itching to try reducing an existing cake recipe into a cake for two. Yesterday was the day. For reference, here's a link to the original recipe from Cooking Light. (Weirdly, the picture at that link is not at all the cake that goes with the recipe. Don't be confused...you're eyes are not deceiving you.)

So, anyway...a 6-inch bundt pan has a volume of 3 cups, while a full-sized bundt pan has a volume of 12 cups. And so...I'm very good at math...I figured out that I could cut any existing recipe down to one-fourth of the original to create a cake for two. And here it is!

It's so cute, I could just eat it up. And I think I will! It needed to cool completely, and then I added the creamy orange glaze. The glaze is made from cream cheese, and I found it hard to mix it up very well. Even though I started with room temperature cream cheese, I ended up giving it a quick shot in the microwave to make it possible to whisk it to a creamy texture. When it was applied to the cake...Ta-Da!

The recipe calls for canned sweet potatoes, but I wanted to use the fresh ones from our CSA share. I peeled and roasted mine, but I actually think boiling would have been a better choice. Roasting gave them a little crust, and boiling would have left them with more moisture. They would have been easier to mash. Or....you can just use canned ones if you like. We each had a piece last night, and it was really so good. With the original from Cooking Light, it's also relatively low in fat.

So, here's my adapted recipe to make this a cake for two. It occurred to me this morning, I could have made it even lower in fat by using two egg whites in place of the whole egg.

Sweet Potato Bundt Cake with Creamy Orange Glaze
adapted from Cooking Light

Cake:
Cooking spray
1/4 teaspoon flour
2 tablespoons fat-free milk
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
1/2 15-oz can sweet potatoes, drained and mashed (about 1/2 cup)
3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Glaze:
3 tablespoons powdered sugar
2 tablespoons (1 oz.) 1/3-less-fat cream cheese, softened
1/4 teaspoon grated orange rind
3/4 teaspoon  fresh orange juice
3/4 teaspoon fat-free milk

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

To prepare the cake, coat a 6-inch bundt pan with cooking spray, and dust with flour.  Set prepared pan aside. (I used Baker's Joy and skipped the flour.)

Combine 2 tablespoons milk, oil vinegar, vanilla, egg, and sweet potatoes in a medium bowl.

Lightly spoon 3/4 cups flour and next 7 ingredients (through cinnamon) in a large bowl, stirring well with a whisk.

Add milk mixture to flour mixture; beat with a mixer at low speed until blended.  Pour batter into prepared pan.  Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted near the center comes out clean.  Cool in pan 10 minutes on a wire rack, remove from pan.  Cool completely on wire rack.

To prepare the glaze, combine powdered sugar and remaining ingredients in a bowl; stir well with a whisk.  Drizzle glaze over cake.

* * * * *

While I was waiting for the cake to bake and cool, I got to work making the quilt back for Semper Fi. Nothing fancy here. I used the fabric you see below.

And then I was ready to cut the strips for the binding from this diagonal stripe. And let me tell you, there was one little kitty who was happy to be back in the sewing room.

Do you think your furriends would like to see my tummy furs?

Now Semper Fi is ready for quilting. I'll get it sandwiched during the Thanksgiving weekend, and then start quilting it in December.

When the back was completed, I decided to make some placemats for the fifth wheel. I've been wanting to make some for quite a while, and then I saw these on Facebook the other day. They were on a continually-running video from Quilter's World. I had a hard time capturing the photo because of the video, but then I saw it while using my phone, and quick-as-a-wink snapped a screen shot as they rolled on by.

And those looked pretty darned simple. I like how they're quilted too. So I went digging through my stash. I wanted to use some of my scraps, and I wanted to use something that wouldn't need to be washed every time we ate a meal...also something sort of appropriate for travel and retirement, and something that would blend in with the browns, grays, golds, and blacks of the RV interior decor. Then I came across this one that was the backing for the Solstice to Solstice quilt.

It has some nice inspirational messages on it: Create a Beautiful Life. Find Joy in Simple Things. Create Happy Moments. Focus on the Good. And that seemed to capture all of the things I was trying to capture with my placemats. So I dug out a couple of other scraps and laid these out for sewing. As I look at the image below, I'm wondering if I should replace the white strip with a black one. I'll check it out this morning and make a decision one way or the other.

I have a lot of that main fabric, and so I'll use the same both front and back. When I have those sewn together, I'll get to work catching up on the Tiny Tuesday blocks. (Note to self: Check to see if there's another one out today.)

Okay, so I'm on Tree #7 of the Twelve Trees for Christmas, and my, oh, my.

The video Mary Corbet made makes the braid stitch look easy, but I fumbled around terribly with this. I tried different things: fabric in the hoop, fabric out of the hoop, fabric loosely hooped, fabric tightly hooped. Also, I thought a longer milliner's needle might help. It did, but I finally decided that reverting to my method of "stabbing" was the best bet for me. If you watch her video to the end, she says her lines are about half an inch apart. Also, her lines are straight. Mine are curved and about an eighth of an inch apart, so my piece is a little more challenging than the demonstration online. This was as far as I got yesterday before I thought I might lose my mind.

Briefly, I considered starting over and just doing a loose chain stitch, but then decided to stick it out. I chose this project because I wanted to learn some new stitches, and so this is a learning project. (Aren't they all?) I'll do the best I can for now, and when I come back to look at it a year from now, I'll be able to see how much progress I've made. At least, that's what I'm telling myself. Besides...there's that masochist in me that needs to be fed sometimes. What better reason could there be for having cats?

Okay, so plenty on the horizon today. Our weather has been lovely for the past week, but we're expecting rain today. Is this it? Has the Big Dark arrived? Time will tell.