Posts from — March 2009

Being sideswiped in your car is an unpleasant experience.  But this kind of a sideswipe will make your baking life better.

A Good SideSwipe

When I saw this reviewed in Cook’s Illustrated, I knew I wanted one.    It’s a blade for your mixer that scrapes the sides and bottom of the bowl WHILE IT IS MIXING.  No need to stop the mixer and scrape down the sides!  Improved mixing action AND less effort.  How cool is THAT?

I went to the SideSwipe website to order one.  Unfortunately, the demand was so high, they sold out VERY quickly (All the other Cook’s readers beat me to the punch).   I had to wait until mid January before they were back in stock.  I impulsively ordered one for myself, and as a present for B, my pal who also appreciates cool tools and has a tilt head KitchenAid mixer.  The blade that fits my mixer costs $25.  It arrived, and then, of course, I needed an excuse to bake something.

I was fortunate enough this past week to use this tool twice.  Once, to make a version of the Great Yellow Cake  from The New Basics for DH’s book club, and once to make a coffee cake from the Joy of Cooking.

SideSwipe On the Mixer

I can attest that the blade works as advertised.  It made the cake batter seem fluffier than with the regular paddle blade, I thought, and it does incorporate the ingredients better.  There was not even a trace of a flour pocket in the bottom of the bowl with this new blade- everything got incorporated nicely.  It made the cake even quicker to mix, not that it needs to be (Preheating the oven takes longer than prepping pans and mixing batter for the Great Yellow Cake).

The manufacturers state on the packaging that this will NOT work well with stiff butter or very stiff doughs.  I made sure the butter was softened for the coffee cake, and had no problems at all with that batter, either.  Since the coffee cake got more verbal response, that’s the recipe I’m including.  Make it with or without a SideSwipe. 

Sour Cream or Yogurt Coffeecake, adapted from the Joy of Cooking

Makes 1 13×9 inch coffeecake

Equipment:

• Bowls (2 regular, 1 for electric mixer)
• 13 x 9 inch baking pan
• measuring cups
• measuring spoons
• electric mixer
• food processor (or pastry blender or fork, if you want to do it manually)
• spatula
• spoon

Streusel Ingredients:

• 1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
• 2/3 cup light brown sugar
• 5 Tbs unsalted butter
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. cinnamon

Streusel Procedure:

1. Melt the butter. (I do this in the microwave)
2. Blend all ingredients together, either by pulsing in the food processor, or by mixing with a pastry blender or fork, until it resembles coarse crumbs.
3. Set aside until ready to put it on the coffeecake.

Coffeecake Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 1/4 cups sour cream or yogurt  (or some of each if you’ve got both as leftovers)
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 4 Tbs. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• non-stick cooking spray, or extra butter for greasing the pan

Coffeecake Procedure:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Put the oven rack in the lower third of the oven.
2. Grease the 13 x 9 pan.
3. Prepare the Streusel, if you haven’t already.
4. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Whisk thoroughly, if you follow rules, absently if you don’t.
5. Combine the yogurt or sour cream with the vanilla extract in another bowl, and set aside.
6. In the large mixer bowl, beat the butter and sugar on high speed until lightened in color and texture, about 4 minutes.
7. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, allowing the first to be incorporated before adding the second.
8. Add the flour mixture in 3 parts, alternating with the yogurt/sour cream mixture in 2 parts.  Keep the mixer on low speed while doing this, scraping down the sides as needed (or not scraping, if you have the SideSwipe!).
9. Pour the batter into the pan, and spread evenly.  Sprinkle the streusel on top.
10. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 30 minutes.  Let the cake cool briefly on a rack.  Serve warm (or cold, or however you like it!).

Just when you thought you’d seen all we did at the quilt retreat,  WAIT… there’s MORE!  You don’t think I could spend the whole weekend without something FOOD or COOKING related, do you?

But first, the clothing and accessory portion of our retreat projects.  Here is Elaine, with her first of three kimono… blocks.  Elaine was being very careful to take proper rest breaks so her neck wouldn’t bother her.  This also allowed her to catch up with each of us individually, which we don’t have time to do at regular guild meetings.

Elaine's Kimono Block

In the outerwear/accessory division, we have Connie, who made a lovely bright messenger bag, so she can look cooler than the students when she’s schlepping around her books and laptop, or hanging out at the Blue Heron on her breaks.

Connie and the Messenger Bag

I tried to get Connie to look pouty and overworked, but she laughed at me.   I mean, she’s already got the black shirt and faded jeans, right?  Note the cool rouching (gathers) on the top flap, for added cool texture.  Way cool, this bag.  I want one to disguise my box of rocks (a.k.a. laptop).

And now, for the cheffy/foodie bit…. APRONS!  Yes, we pulled out our Vanilla House Designs patterns and went at it.  Friday Night and Sunday Dinner Aprons were assembled by several of us.  Here are some photos:

Ingrid working on the Sunday Dinner Apron

Ingrid is marking the rounds on the bottom corners of her apron skirt.  Doesn’t the striped bias binding on her pocket holes look cool?

Ingrid's Apron

See how cool her Sunday Dinner Apron is?  Here’s a closeup of the pocket detail.

Pocket and Swiss Chard Detail

I really like the contrast of the fabrics on this apron.

Sheila's Friday Night Apron

Sheila also carried the food theme along, with stylized vegetables on her Friday Night apron.  Coffee, Tea, or Me, Darling?

There were other aprons made or in progress that didn’t get photographed, but here’s a great shot of Ingrid, Sheila, and Sue.

The Apron Runway

All this, and we can cook, too!  Did I mention the fabulous potluck food?   Can you tell this is one of my favorite weekends of the year?  It’s a great way to spend time with some of my best friends here in the area, and to make our normally solo activity a group one.  Thanks to all of these women for making this weekend so much fun.

I feel horribly that I don’t have more photos of each person’s work, or enough to do a whole post for each participant.  But I was doing a little sewing, too.  I’m still working on the “stop and take some pictures” thing.  I usually forget I have a camera.  This is why photojournalism is NOT my career.

Warning - Quilters Working

This is a pretty good shot of the room we worked in.  Each person had a large table, and there are lots of windows in this octagonal building.  We had lots of room to spread out and to move blocks around, etc.

Here is one of Nancy’s projects.  Nancy’s got a recognizable style and color palette.

Nancy's project, cut

This was early on Saturday morning, I think.

Nancy's project, all pieced

This was probably on Saturday afternoon, possibly Sunday morning.  It takes a good eye to arrange such subtle colors and patterns so that your eye moves all around the piece.  I think Nancy did a very good job placing the yellows, which tend to attract the eye.

The picture below is a close-up, so you can see some of the fabrics better.

Detail of Nancy's quilt top

For those who like to see process pictures, there were a lot of different kinds of projects being worked on. Here are some of them, in no particular order.

Sandy's Pieces Ready for Sewing

Here are Sandy’s cut pieces ready to be assembled together.  Sandy wore a bright purple sweatshirt stating “I’m on a High Fabric Diet”.  She’s got lots of sewing and costuming experience, so we can certainly agree that she gets her fiber fix.

Sue's latest black and white adventure

Sue, who is our doyenne of tiny pieces, bright colors, and high contrast, was working on (another) black and white quilt for her son.  I want to do one of these. I hope she’ll see my imitation as  flattery and not as me being a copycat.

A row of Mary Ann's blocks

While Mary Ann wasn’t sweating over the repair of an old antique quilt for a dear friend, she did manage to make some *NEW* blocks for a baby quilt.  This is one of four rows.  We saw two rows together before she had to leave.

Bob's "GUY" quilt in progress

Here are the blocks arranged for the flannel quilt Kathy was making for her husband, Bob.  This top got pieced together in the course of the weekend, leaving Kathy time to also work on some beautiful machine quilting. (No photo, sorry.)

Melissa's Pink Batik Top

Here are the Morris sisters, holding up Melissa’s pink and orange batik piece.  She says that this was the result of a couple years of collecting pink and orange batiks.  I’m gobsmacked by all the little pieces in these blocks.  Definitely not a pattern for the block-phobic. (i.e. ME)

Here are some pictures of what Candy was working on during the retreat.   You can see more of her work here.  Candy absolutely hates to have her picture taken, preferring to be on the other side of the camera.  She does not, however, mind if we take pictures of what she makes.

Candy enjoys a lot of different techniques in sewing and quilting, and particularly likes hand applique and embroidery.  She’s pretty fearless when it comes to trying new techniques, and is always up for a challenge.  I’m not sure I could pinpoint a signature style in Candy’s work, as she likes to try lots of different things, and varies her color palette from piece to piece.

Candy's Geranium Quilt

Here is a quilt that Candy had started on a previous WAQG retreat.  Orange is an unusual color for Candy, but I think her use of the different orange batiks is an example of how fearless she can be to go outside her comfort zone.  This quilt is pieced, and then the geraniums are added by machine applique.  (Candy’s very good at traditional applique, so this was a conscious choice to do otherwise.  Below is a closeup view of the applique and quilting.  For those who are less knowledgeable about flora and fauna (real or stylized), Candy machine quilted the leaves with the distinctive veining of geraniums.

Closeup of Geraniums

In the upper right of this picture you can see that she repeated the “veins” of the leaves in the rest of her quilting in this area.  Pretty impressive to me, who really can only meander in my machine quilting.   I believe Candy intended to add some beading to the quilt as well, but I’m not sure whether that happened in the course of the weekend.

Candy worked on two other projects.  One is a Spring/Easter themed wall hanging, with bunnies and carrots, with machine piecing and fusible applique.  There will also be embellishments, and possibly embroidery, for the centers of the flowers, the eyes of the rabbits, etc.

Candy's Bunnies

And another detail shot:

Closeup of Piecing and Applique

In case you haven’t noticed,  Candy likes doing hand work, and mixing techniques in a single piece.  She was also working on a little wool placemat that you can use for a cupcake to celebrate a birthday.  This will also have beading and embroidery on it when it’s complete.   This mat is approximately 6 inches in diameter.

Candy's Wool Cake Mat, in Progress

Isn’t this cute?  It would be perfect for a surprise for a co-worker, or if you don’t want to have a whole cake around at home when you celebrate birthdays.

This weekend was our guild’s annual quilt retreat in Frontenac, MN.  We all arrived on Friday afternoon, and stayed until Sunday- morning for some, afternoon for others.  Again, I am reminded what a great group of people I know, and how much fun it is for us to be together with lots of unstructured time for sewing, eating, and being together in a great place.  I have a lot of pictures and stories I could tell from this trip, so I am going to spread them out in more than one post.

When I first met Deb, her voice seemed quiet (compared to my loud one), and a bit reserved.  I am pleased to say that her work is not. 

Deb spent a lot of the weekend working on a baby quilt.  I did not get the details as to whom it was for (perhaps a relative?), but I will beg her for details when I next see her, so I can keep my readers up to date.  (Or maybe you can inform me????)

Here’s a photo I took early on in the retreat, possibly on Saturday morning.

Deb's Block Pieces Cut

After a few hours elapsed, we now can see Deb’s blocks, along with a shot of the pattern in a magazine.  I’m sorry, I don’t have a citation for you. (Can  you help here, dear readers?)

Deb's Blocks

I think the name of the pattern is Baby’s Breath, but I could be wrong.  If you know of my phobia of complicated block patterns and my fear of bias growth,  you’re certain that this is a quilt I’ll admire from a distance, and it is VERY unlikely to ever grace the pages of this blog as one I will make.

Deb's Blocks, Arranged for Sewing

After another undetermined lapse of time, we see Deb’s blocks have been arranged in a group.  I’m not positive this is the final arrangement.

Deb and her Baby Quilt Top

Here is Deb, with her completed quilt top.  I think the two slim borders resemble a mat when a picture is framed.  This photo was taken around 1:30 on Sunday afternoon.    Great work, Deb!  I hope you had as much fun this weekend as I did.

Candy's Fracture

Here’s one of the smaller fracture quilts we did as a group.  Candy came up with this image based on a photograph of some relatives.  From what I remember, each of our pieces was about 12-14 inches long, and between 5 and 8 inches tall.  We all had a good laugh when we realized that her cousin’s head was separated from her body when the picture was fractured.  I was the one who got her head, while Kathy got her body.  I made the head, but left it as a separate piece to fuse on, since I didn’t want to put it in the wrong spot.

Candy sent me this photo this morning, and I’m pleased to see the head lines up with the body.

As you can see,  there were lots of ways that we approached the leaves and branches.  In the detail shot below, I tried to capture some of the different ways we did this.  (It’s a cropped section of Candy’s original photo)

Closeup of detail in Candy's Fracture

You can see that Candy has couched on some thread for the gunwales of the canoe, and you can see that we used different approaches to representing leaves.  This shot shows how five different sections came together, and you can see piecing, applique, and lots of leaf treatments.  I used colored netting to hold my leaf snippets down, and then I used stitching in green thread to hold them in place. (not pictured)
Beautiful, Candy!

Sunday Dinner Apron

Here’s a different apron from Vanilla House Designs- the Sunday Dinner Apron.  This is a bit less revealing than the Friday Night Apron, and thus uses slightly more fabric.  The walking foot on my sewing machine made this easier when the bias binding was added, as it was easier to sew through the layers.

I can still use some work on my photography/Photoshop skills to improve my pictures, but this should give you an idea.  There are two pockets on this apron, with the teardrop shaped holes to get things in and out.

pocket detail

Here’s a closeup of the pocket detail- the light blue batik which is the pocket lining is the same large piece that is the lining of the apron skirt.  There is a seam (you can see a bit of it on the left side of the photo, near the edge) which goes around he pocket, sewing the fabric front an lining together, forming the pockets.

I think I will send this apron to my sister as her birthday present, with the pattern (I bought 3 copies), in case she’d like to make another one.