Clementine Cake

I made this cake the other day. It is so good! I topped it off with whipped cream and clementine zest. But, I think the next time I make it I'll add a clementine glaze (1/4 C Clementine Juice mixed with zest and 1 C powdered sugar poured over when hot.) Also, check it at about 25 mins and then every 5 mins. It cooks fast. It's so delicious. So so yummy. I was skeptical at first but it really is delicious and easy.

Clementine Cake
Adapted from Nigella Lawson

4 to 5 clementines (about 375grams/slightly less than 1 pound total weight)
6 eggs
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (225 grams) sugar
2 1/3 cups (250 grams) ground almonds
1 heaping teaspoon baking powder

Optional: Powdered sugar for dusting, or for making a glaze

Put the clementines in a pot with cold water to cover, bring to the boil, and cook for 2 hours. Drain and, when cool, cut each clementine in half and remove the seeds. Then finely chop the skins, pith, and fruit in the processor (or by hand, of course).

Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).

Butter and line an 8-inch (21 centimeter) springform pan with parchment paper. (I used a 9-inch, it worked fine.)

Beat the eggs. Add the sugar, almonds, and baking powder. Mix well, adding the chopped clementines.

Pour the cake mixture into the prepared pan and bake for 30 to 50 minutes, when a skewer will come out clean; you might have to cover the cake with foil after about 20 to 30 minutes to stop the top from over-browning.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool, in the pan on a rack. When the cake is cold, you can take it out of the pan and dust it with powdered sugar. I made a glaze of powdered sugar and a tablespoon of clementine juice because I was convinced the cake would be too bitter. It was not neccessary. Nigella says the cake is best on the second day, but ours never made it that long.

Addicted to Water

I drink so much water everyday. Mostly because I'm addicted, but also because it's good for my skin and the baby. Anyhow, over the past month I've also been addicted to swimming. It literally takes a load off. I always grew up swimming since we had a community pool in our neighborhood. But, I didn't do it competitively until my Junior year of HS. I started out in track but after being fed up with shin splints and the coercing of several friends I switched to swimming. I enjoyed doing the IM (fly/back/breast/free) as an event. I always had a really great pike start, but when it came to the breaststroke I got behind. I just don't have a good breaststroke. I still do it because it's great for my thighs.

Anyhow, no matter what, rain or shine I'm in the pool every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings. It feels so great. I just do 7 sets of 12, which ends up being 1 1/3 miles. Since the sun has started to come up earlier now it's so beautiful to swim with the rays shining through the water. I am back to smelling like chlorine again.

Al the other girls on the swim team would lather up with self tanner for proms to cover up their tan line. I flaunted mine.

Senior Prom

Junior Prom

Expecting Mother

When Jared worked at Google I remember seeing the "Expecting Mother" parking in Mt. View. Then when we moved back from Switzerland and he left Google and I got pregnant I was a little sad not to be able to park there whenever I'd go to pick up Jared from Google or meet him for lunch.

Well, a couple of weeks ago I visited Google to do a usability study...and low and behold, there was one "Expecting Mother" parking spot left. I jumped on it:)

Tea Parties are always fun!

I found the tea party photos and with some extra effort trying to view them my genius husband fixed it for me.

I love tea parties. My friends and I had one in High School after the prom so we could wear our prom dresses again. I couldn't find the photos. For one of my bridal showers my friends gave me an "Alice in Wonderland" tea party. Then when I left Switzerland my other friends threw me a "Very Merry Un-Birthday" tea party. (I've got great friends everywhere!)

Anyhow, the weather was looking great so I invited some of my new friends (and one cousin) and their kids to have a tea party at my house. After finding a time (w/ pre-school and nap schedules) we started planning.

I got up earlier than usual (6am) to get in my morning swim and then made scones and got things ready. The day was beautiful!

My cousin Emily and her cutie pie!

Dana and her little one who live down the hall.

Sarah and her precious munchkin.

Kirsha, and her baby was chillin', well not really chillin' but hanging out with lots of movement on the floor.

We set the kids up with their own tea set.

All in all it was a success, despite the several escape attempts by the three year olds. They actually made it out to the street. No one fell off the balcony or cracked their head open on one of our sharp corners. Yes, we have established that our place is definitely not baby proof. But we still have a while to worry about that!

Tea Party....and stupid technology

I had some friends over for a tea party. It was a beautiful day. I had beautiful gerber daisies. I took beautiful photos. Then technology messed everything up in the loading process. This is the only photo salvaged from the camera...unless my personal genius can come home and fix everything like he always does.

Rainbow on the wall from the prism that Heather gave me in HS that put in the window of every place I move to.

Raspberry Cream Scones

Here's the scone recipe that everyone has been asking for. Enjoy!

Raspberry Cream Scones from Food to Live By by Myra Goodman

Makes 8 Scones

2 Cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 Cup sugar, plus 2 Tbsp for topping
1Tbsp baking powder
2 tsp grated lemon zest
¼ tsp salt
4 Tbsp (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into bits and chilled
1 large egg
½ Cup heavy whipping cream, plus 2 Tbsp for the glaze
1 tsp pure almond extract
¾ Cup fresh raspberries of frozen (unthawed) unsweetened raspberries


1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 400° F. Lightly butter a baking sheet or line it with parchment paper.
2. Place the flour, 1/3 C of sugar, baking powder, lemon zest and salt in a large bowl and whisk to combine well. Add the chilled butter. Using a pastry blender, or 2 knives, blend the butter into the mixture until it is crumbly and well combined.
3. Place the egg, cream and almond extract in a small bowl and whisk to combine well. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir with a rubber spatula until just barely combined. Gently fold in the raspberries. Do no over mix the dough or the scones will be tough.
4. Turn out the dough, along with any loose dry bits, onto a lightly floured work surface and pat into a disk about 1 ½ inches thick. Cut the dough with a knife into 6 pie shaped wedges and place them on the prepared baking sheet.
5. Brush the scones with the remaining 2 Tbsp of cream and sprinkle them with the remaining 2 Tbsp of sugar.
6. Bake the scones until they are golden brown and firm to the touch, 15 or 20 mins.
7. Place the baking sheet on a wire rack and let the scones cool about 10 mins. Serve the scones warm or at room temperature. The scones taste best the day they are made.

Reading to the little guy.

Jared's been reading to the baby...well my belly. He really likes it, both of them. He kicks and flips around. Actually he does that a lot but, especially when Jared's around. He really likes his Dad. I don't blame him. On Sunday Jared read him Fox in Sox by Dr. Seuss. He's a fan!

Old vs. New

My mom bought a new Apple laptop. It's so sleek! Her's is on the left. Ours is on the right. It's been through a lot. We have the older version of the Macbook Pro. It was Jared's old work computer from Google. I like our keyboard better.

One day about 4 years ago Jared set the laptop on top of his car after work. He drove off with it still there. So, they are both silver and it was probably a long day at work so who could blame him for forgetting. Anyhow, he drove over the freeway and did a loop (about a mile) and then it flew off. Since he had shut it down, the hard drive was intact and it STILL WORKS!

(notice the nice shots of my mom;)

My mom's has a nice internal magnet for it to stay closed. Ours doesn't close. You have to set something on it or lie it upside down. But if you lay it upside down the power cord doesn't really work...it got dropped while watching a movie on it in Austria. We had it propped on a garbage can...

You can't put cd's into it. But you can get the internet!

It is slowly dying, we can't bring ourselves to pull money out of savings to buy a new one...since we do have a desktop. My mom's probably weighs about 5 lbs less.

Google didn't want it back when Jared left....I wonder why;)