A Little Spring in Winter

It's been unseasonably warm for a Canadian winter, with the last few weeks mostly above freezing.

So it feels like Spring's just around the corner (which it isn't...there is snow coming on Sunday).

I saw these beautiful cakes the other day at my favorite local patisserie, Bruleé, and they made me smile:

Don't eat the flowers though!

I also loved the chocolate ganache cake with fruit:

Happy!

About an hour later I stopped at Crate & Barrel and admired their spring collection of silk flowers:

Magnolia branches, white peonies and pink dahlias at Crate & Barrel

You can see how desperate I am for spring to arrive.

Happy weekend!

Sweetness

If I weren't an engineer-writer-decorator-photographer-aesthete, I might have been a baker.

I do love the pursuit of baking but I don't indulge myself as often as I'd like (who needs the calories?).

Over the holidays, I made my first proper Christmas pudding (a resounding success), but I also tried my hand at two pumpkin desserts which appeal to the non-lovers of chocolate in our family.

The first was this Pumpkin Ginger Roulade (a 5-star recipe from the Barefoot Contessa!) - a soft rolled pumpkin cake filled with crystallized ginger finely minced into mascarpone cream:

It was so lovely with vanilla ice cream and coffee, but I warn you, it is very, very rich!

I served it on a darling Limoges platter (one of my favorite things) that I bought at the Vanves flea market in Paris:

You can find the recipe here.

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My next recipe is a definite family favorite:

~ Upside Down Pumpkin Cake with Cranberry & Pecan topping ~

I cannot say enough about this beautiful cake!

The recipe makes a soft moist pumpkin cake with a crunchy tart-sweet topping of beautiful cranberries and toasted pecans in a brown sugar-butter syrup. It is simply delicious served with whipped cream and coffee:

The original recipe calls for a 9x9 square pan, but I use a funnel pan...the wreath-like presentation is much much prettier for Christmas!

You can find the recipe, by pastry chef Emily Luchetti, here. Her book, A Passion for Desserts, is my favorite dessert cookbook.

I served the cake on my lovely pink and gold bone Limoges bird plates, which my mother gave me in October when I was home. Each of the six plates has a different bird, and the plates are very fine and appear to be quite old:

I think these two desserts make a lovely alternative to pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving or Christmas!