July, short and sweet

Though July seemed busy I guess I didn't take my camera along. Here's a few pics though.

We went berry picking for currants, raspberries, and gooseberries. I've never cooked with currants or gooseberries and I was very curious to try them. Gooseberries are odd little fruits, hairy and grape-sized. They are quite bitter but are pretty good in a fruit crumble with apples. Currants are just beautiful little red, black, and pink fruits and taste wonderful in muffins. The black are a liitle sweeter, I think. I also made a cake that was soooo good. I'll tack on the recipe.

Black currant orange sour cream cake
from Epicurious

Ingredients
1 c. Butter

2 c. Sugar

4 Eggs

2 ¾ c. Flour

1 ½ t. Baking powder

1 t. Cinnamon

½ t. Baking soda

½ t. Salt

¼ t. Cloves

2 c. Fresh black currants
1 c. Slivered almonds

1 T. Orange peel
1 c. Sour cream

Directions
Grease a 9” tube pan. Preheat oven to 325°.
Cream together the butter and sugar until light. Add eggs 1 at a time. Blend together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and cloves. Stir in the currants, almonds and orange peel.
Alternate into the batter the sour cream and the dry mix. Pour batter into pan.
Bake for 1 ½ hours until a skewer comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out on a rack and set right side up. Punch a lot of holes in top with skewer.
For a glaze heat ¼ c. orange juice and ¼ c. sugar until syrupy. While cake is warm, drizzle orange syrup over the top.

Kate showing off her haul. She wanted to pick the pink currants, go figure.

She just ccouldn't get cuter.

I felt ready to blow at any time. I was just huge and decided to take a picture before I exploded. I gave birth about two weeks after this.

Kate's new favorite outfit, sent as a gift from Sharon, a friend of mine.