Books, Tea, and the Trinity: Apple Buttermilk Cake

Back in 2020, some friends and I started a Tea Party/Bible Study/Book Club. We met every Wednesday and worked our way through the Chronicles of Narnia and are currently working through The Chronicles of Prydain. When we started I resolved to share all the recipes, we have made-but I haven’t gone through them as quickly as I hoped.

When we completed The Magician’s Nephew,The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; and A Horse and His Boy; we moved on to book four, Prince Caspian. This book is one of my favorites in the series as I love Prince Caspian (although the Disney film version is horrible). Like A Horse and His Boy, this book did not mention a lot of specific foods, so we planned whatever we wanted to make.

As I wasn’t in charge of this book, there will be no discussion questions, just recipes. 

The first week we had Apple Cinnamon Scones: Salmon Radish Cucumber Canapés, Cinnamon Bread-Honey-Cheese-Apple and Ham Sandwiches, Kellogg’s Cheese Potato Crisps, and Applesauce Cake; all paired with Caroline’s Coffee Roaster Princess Earl Grey (as we needed to have some royal-tea).

The next week we had lavender flowering tea, Irish Soda Bread, Tuna Salad, Twice Baked Potatoes, carrot soup, and Quaker Oatmeal Cookies with Chocolate Chips.

For our final discussion of Prince Caspian we had Earl Grey Lavender Scones, Salmon and Cucumber Sandwiches, Radish-Dill Canapés, Cheese Potato Crisps, and Buttermilk Apple Cake.

Today’s recipe is the Buttermilk Apple Cake from two peas & their pod. I first came across this recipe when I was looking for something to make with the leftover buttermilk from my Irish Soda Bread.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon, divided
• Pinch of fresh nutmeg
• ½ stick unsalted butter, softened
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• ½ cup shaken buttermilk
• 1 large Granny Smith apple, peeled, and sliced 
• 2 Tablespoons brown sugar
• Turbinado sugar (to sprinkle on top of cake) [I didn’t have any so I used brown sugar instead)
• Powdered Sugar (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in middle. Butter and flour a 9-inch round cake pan.
2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ½ teaspoon of the cinnamon, and nutmeg. 
3. Beat butter and 2/3 cup sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy.
4. Beat in vanilla. Add egg and beat until combined.
5. At low speed, mix in flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour, and mixing until just combined.
6. In a small bowl, combine the apple slices with the brown sugar and other ½ teaspoon cinnamon.
7. Stir until apples are coated.
8. Spoon batter into cake pan, smoothing top. Place sliced apples evenly over top and sprinkle with turbinado sugar.
9. Bake until cake is golden and a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, about 25 minutes.
10. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack and cool to warm, 10 to 15 minutes more.
11. Invert onto a plate. Serve with vanilla ice cream if you wish or add powdered sugar on top.

This was delicious and is a wonderful way to use up the leftover buttermilk if you are looking for something different to try. It looked a little plain so I added the powdered sugar, next time I make it I am contemplating forgoing sugar on top and maybe adding a glaze? But yes, it was absolutely delicious and I recommend it.

For more from our Books, Tea, and the Trinity tea times, go to Radish-Dill Canapés

For more cake recipes, go to Applesauce Cake

For more dessert recipes, go to Brown Butter Matcha Brownies

For more recipes, go to Dark Chocolate Peppermint Scones

For more tea posts, go to Spill the Tea: Alley Cat Cafe

Harvest Pumpkin Scones

So this recipe comes from my sister blog MysteriousEats.wordpress.com. Typically I just reblog her posts onto my site, but I noticed that they don’t look the best and kind of come out weird looking. So instead I decided that I would just copy and paste her post onto my site. Here we go.

Ready for scones & tea.

So we were having a tea at church and I needed a scone to go with our food. I had already decided on a savory (will be posting soon), but needed a sweet scone.

I started scouring the internet when I came upon this recipe on The King Arthur Flour website. Everything I have made from them has been fantastic so I thought I would give it a try.

 

Ingredients:

• 2-3/4 Cups of King Arthur Unbleached Flour or Regular Flour
• 1/3 Cup of Sugar
• 1 Tablespoon of Baking Powder
• 3/4 Teaspoon of Salt
• 3/4 Teaspoon of Ground Cinnamon
• 1/4 Teaspoon of Ground Ginger
• 1/4 Teaspoon of Ground Nutmeg
• 1/4 Teaspoon of Ground Allspice
• 1/2 Cup of Cold Butter
• 1-2 Cups of Chocolate Chips
• 2/3 Cup of Canned Pumpkin
• 2 Large Eggs
• Cinnamon sugar (1 Tablespoon of Cinnamon and 1 Tablespoon of granulated sugar), for topping
• Milk

Directions:

1. In a large mixing bowl; whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and the spices (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, & allspice).
2. Work in the butter until the mix is unevenly crumbly; it’s ok for some larger chunks of butter to remain unincorporated.
3. Stir in the Chocolate Chips.
4. In a separate mixing bowl, whisk together the pumpkin and eggs till smooth.
5. Add the pumpkin/egg mixture to the dry ingredients and stir until all is moistened and holding together.
6. Line a baking sheet with parchment; if you don’t have any use the sheet without parchment,but don’t grease it. Instead sprinkle a bit of flour on the parchment.
7. Scrape the dough onto the floured parchment or pan and divide it in half.
8. Round each half into a 6″ circle, about 3/4 an inch thick.
9. Brush each circle with milk and sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar mixture.
10. Using a knife, cut each circle into size wedges.
11. Carefully pull the wedges away from the center to separate them just a bit, about 1/2 inch space between them.
12. Place the scones in the freezer for 30 degrees uncovered. While the scones are chilling, preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
13. Back the scones 22-25 mins or until golden brown and toothpick inserted into a center of one comes out clean. The edges should be baked through.
14. Remove from the oven and serve warm.

 

 

THOUGHTS AFTER BAKING:

I loved them! They were perfect!

 

They were just so delicious everyone ate them right away and wanted more.

 

I cannot recommend more strongly that you should definitely make them.

For more scone recipes, go to Lemon Scones

For more on Peter Pan, go to It’s Always Tea Time  

And for weekly recipe reviews, go to Mysterious Eats

 I wasn’t really planning on including this in my Christmas countdown, but hey a post is a post so it needs a song to go with it.

So I had never heard this song before until the other when I was driving to work. At first I was like what is this? Who is Dominick the donkey?

But then as I listened, it quickly grew on me. So much that I actually listened to it later at home and decided to include it in our countdown. After all, donkey’s need love too.

So this song is called Dominick the Donkey and was written in 1960 by Ray Allen, Sam Saltzberg and Wandra Merrell. It was recorded by Lou Monte and is about a donkey that Santa owns, used to help deliver presents to children in Italy as reindeer cannot climb the mountains.

To start our 25 Carols of Christmas from the beginning, go to It Was a Pleasure to Burn: Fahrenheit 451

For more Christmas Carols, go to Your Cases Have Indeed Been of the Greatest Interest to Me: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

For more Christmas donkeys, go to the 25 Films of Christmas