Nothing Better

I recently attended a wedding ceremony with my mom for an old neighbour held in ChinaTowns' Sun Yat Sen Gardens. It was a beautiful sunny day and the ceremony was very sweet and quaint. Afterwards, I went exploring in the Gardens and want to share some of the shots that I took. The Gardens are filled with bamboo, willow trees, lily pads and koi fish.... enjoy!

bamboo

lily pads

A few days later, John and I were out in Tsawassen, and got to enjoy a gorgeous summer sunset. The sun was a brilliant orange ball setting over the horizon, and we had fun skipping rocks and looking at seaweed.

Our attempts at skipping rocks were not the best, but we had fun all the same.

Then, on July 30th, it was Johns 22nd Birthday, so I slaved for a few hours in the kitchen to make him a Summer Fruit Cake. I used a boxed organic vanilla cake, organic mint leaves, cream cheese icing (premade) and any fruit I desired. I made the cake in a casserole dish and lined it with parchment paper so that it did not stick and could be transported easily. I literally just "picked" the cake up by the edges of the paper and lifted it out of the dish for faster cooling. Once cool, I cut the cake in half (horizontally) and made a layer of icing and mostly blueberries. Then I laid the other half of the cake back on top, and did another layer of cream cheese icing, and then "strategically" placed all my fruits, which I had covered in a glaze. To do the glaze, I heated up some organic Happy Planet fruit juice and added a few tablespoons of apricot jelly. I cooked it until it became thick, and could coat the fruit. The goal was for the jelly to reset and leave the fruit with a nice sheen, and also help keep them in place. I saw this technique on "French Food at Home". I did not follow it exactly, and recommend looking it up so that it can be done better than I did. It still worked, but it could have been better. After I covered the cake in the fruit, I placed mint sprigs around it for a hit of colour, and also, to cut the sweetness of the cream cheese icing , cake and fruit, which are all sweet. It was a huge hit, and everyone commented on the mint being the perfect pairing for the cake! I will definitely be making this one again!

Next time, I will put up my recipes for my ultimate summer lemonades: Rosemary Lemonade and Mint Lemonade.  Ciao!