Escape To The Twin Cities

Last weekend I took a trip to the Cities (that's what the rest of Minnesota calls Minneapolis/St. Paul/Suburbs).

After a long winter we needed to take a Spring Escape.

We went to my favorite restaurant The Good Earth at the Galleria. Well, it was my favorite. I wasn't very impressed with the service or food. It was like eating at a Perkins.

I had a coconut/mango smoothie.

Mom and Dad

Appetizer - warm artichoke dip with jicama and pita wedges.

This was very good. The pita were warm and soft. The dip was creamy and the jicama added a nice crunch.

Mom's main dish - it was over spiced with cumin.

Dad's dish - too much 5 spice.

My meal - the nut/bean burger was undercooked and mushy. The soup was good, but I can make richer broth. Sorry Good Earth!

On our way to Minneapolis to see Macbeth at the Guthrie.

Macbeth was amazing. Although the costumes were a little distracting - 1950's military?

The next day we went to the Mall of America (MOA).

It was an interesting experience.

I met a woman who took cupcakes hostage.......

So, we went to the Williams-Sonoma store. They were doing a cake/cupcake demonstration. We watched for over 1/2 an hour. I was planning on buying some things after the demonstration, but then I met the Cupcake Nazi.

She was so mean!

See the woman on the right side in the brown shirt cutting up the GIANT cake (apparently not big enough to share). First of all, she argued with the blonde woman through the entire presentation - they couldn't agree on anything. Then she went to cut up the cake and get the cupcakes ready. We watched while at least 15 people (shoppers - not people watching the presentation - like us) came up to her and she gave them a slice of cake.

Finally, she passed out pieces of cake to all the people watching the demonstration - except us.

O-kay

Then she brought out a tray of 40 cupcakes (there were about 9 people watching the demonstration). She passed out cupcakes to everyone else and said to us, "We want to make sure everyone that signed up for the demonstration gets a cupcake first." Then she took the remaining 31 cupcakes behind the counter AND continued to hand out cake to random shoppers!!!!!!!

We left and I will NEVER, EVER buy ANYTHING from Williams-Sonoma!!!

Who keeps cupcakes hostage?!?

It's not humane!

Cupcakes are for sharing.

Period.

Also, the blonde lady kept telling people they could buy the same supplies cheaper at Ikea.

Um?

We saw Jesse Venture (our former Governor - so weird and hard to imagine that it actually happened) signing his book.

Crepes - yummy!

Dinner at Ikea. I was so tired by this time. We ran into more rude people a Ikea, but that's to be expected at Ikea - they are always rude.

I LOVE the gravy on the mashed potatoes. It's vegetarian! We bought 12 packets.

Dad watching March Madness in our hotel room.

We stayed at the Residence Inn by Marriott.

It was super nice!

Mom in our room's kitchen. It was better stocked than a lot of houses that we have rented.

Yummy cheese and cocosballs that we bought at Ikea.

Those cocosballs are so good. They have a soft marshmallow cream inside them. I would make the trip to the Cities just for them.

There was a full complimentary breakfast every morning at our hotel.

It was wonderful! Lots of choices and the staff were friendly, cheerful and helpful.

The warm buffet choices: eggs 2 ways, pancakes, croissants, hash browns, fried potatoes and some other stuff.

Other side of the buffet. You could also make a fresh waffle or have 3 choices of cereal.

The next day we went to the Science Museum in St. Paul. We saw the Dead Sea Scrolls.........and everything else!

Pretty blue sculpture.

Mom and me with the Mississippi River behind us.

Dad and Mom.

Downtown St. Paul.

Riverboat.

Mississippi River.

I thought this fish in the Mississippi River display was neat.

It's made out of junk.

It was pretty.

Loon!

The Minnesota state bird.

I'm sitting in a red blood cell chair!

Slice of the human body. This person had lung disease and plaque in their aorta.

Side way - with a huge brain aneurysm.

Dad

Dad and Mom.

I thought this was pretty.

And this was pretty too!

It's plastic "junk" glued on a wall with 4 different colored bulbs in the ceiling above the wall.

You could change the color combinations and change the shadow colors and patterens.

Home again.

With a cupcake, it would have been a perfect vacation.

Just kidding! It was a great trip!

Persian Love Cake

While searching for rose water recipes, I stumbled upon recipes for Persian Love Cake. There seem to be many different people making the same recipe. The same strange recipe. It looked like a lot of people were using this recipe from Epicurious via Bon Appetit. I was confused by some of the directions in the recipe, so I took it to the best cake expert I know - my Mom.

She pointed out quite a few flaws in the recipe, re-worked the recipe and baked the cake for me.

Awesome!

The Epicurious recipe irritates me. It sounds like it was written by someone who tasted this cake and then decided to make up a recipe for it.

~

This is NOT a copy and paste recipe from Epicurious/Bon Appetit. This is a totally NEW recipe.

Persian Love Cake

Candied Rose Petals:

2 large egg whites

1/2 cup sugar

petals from 1 rose

Cake:

2 1/4 cup cake flour

1 cup superfine sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

4 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup oil

1 tsp grated lemon or orange peel

1/2 tsp ground cardamom

Frosting:

2 1/2 cups chilled heavy whipping cream, divided

pinch of saffron (I would skip this next time)

1 1/3 cup powdered sugar

1 tsp rose water

To make the cake: Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Grease 2 8 inch pans, line pan bottoms with parchment paper. In one bowl, mix dry ingredients together. Mix remaining wet ingredients in another bowl. Add one cup of the wet ingredient mixture to the dry ingredients. Stir for 1 1/2 mins. Add remaining wet ingredient mixture and blend together. Pour batter into the 2 prepared pans. Bake until a cake tester comes out clean. About 20 mins.

Allow cakes to cool completely.

Frosting: If you are using the saffron - take half of the cream and heat in a small pan until it simmers. Add saffron, stir and let cool.

Candied Rose Petals: Whisk 2 egg whites in a small bowl. Separate the petals from one rose and dip them in the egg whites. Just wet the rose petals, so the sugar will stick to them. Don't leave lumps of whipped egg white, like we did, that was one of the mistakes in the original recipe.

The egg whites shouldn't be stiff - like they are in this picture.

Allow the petals to dry overnight.

For the frosting: Whip the remaining cream. Strain the saffron infused cream and add to the whipped cream. Continue to whip until thickened, then add sugar. Continue to whip until stiff peaks form.

Cut the cakes in half, so you have 4 layers.

Frost cake.

Frost sides.

Decorate with rose petals and fresh roses.

This cake would make a beautiful wedding cake.
However, it's not a pure white cake, because of the saffron.

Skip the saffron.

It tastes weird.

Without the saffron it will be a pure white cake.