About the Birds and the Bees

My Grandparents had a wonderful garden. The backyard was home to luscious flower beds and a perfect lawn, the garden along the side of the house was used for growing food. I watched my Grandparents proudly processing beans for canning and my Grandma emerging smiling from the little green house with warm, heavenly scented tomatoes. My Grandpa could cut long radishes into paper-thin spirals and one of his favourite treats was a slice of buttered bread with an apple. My Grandma made a lot of jam and jellies. The scent of the bubbling pots was overwhelming on a hot summer’s day.

My Grandpa had one big heartache in his garden and that was his cherry tree. Every year he would prune it, care for it and be upset by the very few cherries he would be able to eat. I actually can’t remember ever eating one. He battled several problems: first of all it was a bit cold for cherries where he lived. Secondly the tree did not get that much sun and the few cherries it grew were eaten by birds.

I have to admit that when I was a kid I had very little understanding why my Grandpa was so upset about this. After all you could just go out and buy some, couldn’t you?

The irony is that all these years later I find out that I am in the same dilemma. I live in an area where sour cherries are rare, so we planted three trees in our garden: one in the front, two in the back. The one in front of the house has a disease and grows very little, but so far has had the most cherries. The two in the back are healthy, but produce about 2 handfuls of cherries each. Last year I had enough for 2 jars of jam, which I hid unlabeled in the back of my pantry.

This year I am off to a good start. There are lots of flowers:

And in a nesting box nearby I found a hive of Bumble Bees.

I don’t think that cherries need to be fertilized by bees, but it can’t hurt, can it. What does hurt are a couple of finches. Those little buggers like to come for a visit and bite off (!) the flowers on the cherry trees. I think they like the sweet nectar in the bottom of them. I watched Mr. Finch picking off 10 flowers in under a minute. Grr! Life is hard for a gardener.

Well, if again my sour cherries fail me, I have my quinces to make me happy. Don’t the flowers look beautiful?

How to Bake A Star

For my birthday I received several books about baking bread. One of them called “Dough: Simple Contemporary Breads” by Richard Bertinet has very detailed photos how to shape different breads. When I saw little star shaped buns I had to make them right away.

The dough for these buns consists of 3 parts whole wheat flour and 2 parts all purpose flour, but you can use any firm bread recipe you like.

In the book he used poppy seeds, but I used sesame seeds and Nigella ( black cumin) instead. I know Nigella from Germany where you can find it sprinkled on Turkish bread and I just love how it tastes.  You can buy it at the Gourmet Warehouse in Vancouver.

I want to show you how those little stars are shaped. First you divide the dough in small portions and shape these into little balls, which rest for 5 to 10 minutes. Then you flatten the ball into a disc, dip one side into water and then into the seeds.

Then you take a dough card and cut 3 slits into the disk so that there is still uncut dough around the edge.

As you can see there are now little triangles meeting in the centre. You take these and flip them over so that they point outside.

Now you turn them over, let them rise and bake for 15 to 20 minutes at 250˚C or 480˚F.

It turns out that these stars are very tasty indeed. They offer a lot of crust and if you bake many and freeze them you can just pop one into the toaster to thaw it, because they are quite flat.

I think they would also work well with a sweet yeast dough sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. I have to try that.