Anna Olson's Sour Cream Coffee Cake Recipe

Thank you Allen from Sweden for letting me know that you view the blog. ---- I have a couple of tubs of sour cream to use up and found this great recipe from Anna Olsen who is one of the best dessert makers out there.

Light or low-fat sour cream, while ideal for topping things, is not ideal in baking recipes. Use regular sour cream in all your baked goods.

Yield: 12
Ingredients- Cake
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sour cream
2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

---Topping
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon all purpose flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup walnut pieces
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted

Directions To Assemble
Preheat oven to 350° F. Cream butter and sugar until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, stirring well after each addition. Add vanilla and stir in sour cream. In a separate bowl, combine dry ingredients and stir into wet ingredients until just incorporated. In another bowl, combine all ingredients for topping. Scrape half of the coffee cake batter into a greased 8-inch square cake pan and level. Sprinkle half of the topping over cake and cover with remaining batter. Finish with topping and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until a tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
Serve warm or at room temperature. Yield: 1 8-inch square cake.

The Wedding Ring Finger

I was wondering - again today - about the interesting position of the Wedding Ring. I have heard that it is the only finger that has a vein that goes to our heart and thus is a symbol of love. Albeit - there is alot whom contest this. Different cultures do not do this. For example In a traditional Jewish wedding ceremony, the groom places the ring on the bride's index finger, and not the ring finger; today the ring usually is moved to the ring finger after the ceremony and most Jewish grooms have adopted wearing a wedding ring. This tradition is because in Ancient Israel, at the time of the Talmud, the Jews believed the index finger was the most prominent of fingers. Ha - the one that points. Anyway, you can do your own googling of this tradition but today was just pondering it again!

Japan - Still in my Heart and Prayers

Love this pic of a Panda holding onto policemans leg in Japan. The title of the pic is Japanese panda afraid of tsunami - Also am posting youtube of piano solo called The Rainbow Connection from a muppet movie for Japan today. Please turn off music player at bottom of blog whose first song is also about rainbows.

Aurora Borealis

Please turn off music player to view at bottom of blog. Shot in and around Kirkenes and Pas National Park bordering Russia, at 70 degree north and 30 degrees east. Temperatures around -25 Celsius.

The Aurora from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

This is not what they predicted!!!

They said 5-10 cm but if this keeps up it will be more like 20 cm. And to think that just yesterday it was green everywhere. I got the leaves off the tulips on the weekend and raked elsewhere. Ah well, hope the tulips don't mind one last snowfall. Today is the first debris pick-up and it was weird watching them pick that up in the snow.

C'est Moi

Last week got together with friends at a local Pizza joint. The joke with me is that I am a city girl. On the way home a friend took this pic of me by the Green Acres Motel. Green Acres was a sitcom in the 60's and Zsa Zsa would always say, "DAHLING I LOVE YOU BUT GIVE ME PARK AVENUE". Today, a bunch of us girls are getting together for a dinner at a friends house. I have made Bashmati/Wild Rice with Quinoa and Mushrooms, Scallion and Snow Peas. I always look forward to the dinners and all the interesting food that people bring. Retirement is good! On another note - the snow is kaput and the tulips are starting to pop up. Now the work begins out front and back dethatching the grass and more raking eventually as the twirly-gigs come down in a few weeks. I love Spring.

Today March 19th

My last post was about Libya. Today, the French, British and the U.S.A. are bombing Libya.