Blueberry Bavarian Cream Cake

Backstory: I came across this amazing-looking dragonfruit cake recipe and immediately wanted to try it for myself.  Of course dragonfruit is only available seasonally, so there was no way I could get any for another six months and I was impatient.  So I found this similar strawberry recipe... but strawberries aren't great this time of year, either.  But my freezer was full of blueberries, and this blueberry Charlotte recipe sounded similar, but not exactly what I was looking for.... so I frankensteined all 3 recipes together to come up with this one:

Blueberry Bavarian Cream Cake

Cake base:
1/4 c butter, softened
1/4 c sugar
1 egg
1/4 c flour
1/4 c baking powder

Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Line the bottom of a springform pan with parchment paper.

In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar.  Add the egg and mix well.  Add the flour and baking powder and mix to get a uniform batter.

Pour into the pan and bake for about 15 minutes, until a toothpick comes cleanly out of the cake.  Unmold and cool completely.

Cream filling:
4 c blueberries
3 Tbsp lemon juice
1 1/2 c heavy cream
5 tsp gelatin powder
1/3 c water
1 c milk
3/4 c sugar
2 egg yolks

In a blender, puree the blueberries with the lemon juice.  Remove 1 1/2 cup of the blended mixture and reserve for the topping.

Whip the heavy cream to stiff peaks; set aside.

Mix the gelatin powder with 1/3 c water and let sit while making the custard.

Pour the milk into a saucepan and heat until steaming.  In a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar.  Pour hot milk into the egg yolk mixture and whisk quickly to combine without cooking the egg yolks.  Pour back into the saucepan and cook for a few more minutes, until thickened and able to coat the back of a wooden spoon.  Remove from heat, add the proofed gelatin, and mix until gelatin dissolves into the hot custard.

Mix the 2 1/2 cups of pureed blueberries and the custard in a large bowl.  Fold in the heavy cream until the mixture is uniform - it will still be quite liquid at this point, but will solidify in the fridge later.

Now line the walls of the springform pan with parchment paper.  Replace the cake base at the bottom and pour the cream filling over (it should fill the pan most of the way).  Place in the fridge and let cool for at least 3 hours, until firm.  For a long refrigeration, cover with a plate or plastic to keep it from drying out.

Blueberry gelatin:
1 1/2 c reserved blueberry puree
3 tsp gelatin powder
1/4 c water

(You may not have to use this much gelatin powder, but I wanted to use up all of mine.)

Mix the gelatin powder with the water and let sit for about 5 minutes.

Heat the blueberry puree in a saucepan.  Add the gelatin mixture to it and whisk together.  Pour over the now completely cooled cake to form a top gelatin layer.  You can also do as the dragonfruit recipe suggests: pipe a ring of whipped cream around the edge of the cake, and pour the gelatin inside.

Place back in the fridge to finish cooling and setting, at least 1 hour or up to a day.  Again, for long refrigeration, cover it to keep it fresh.  Then serve - top with whipped cream, powdered sugar, extra fruit, or whatever else you like!

The amount of gelatin gave it a lot of structure, so it wasn't at any risk of falling apart.  You could consider adding sugar to some - or any - of the above steps.  It came out very rich, but not particularly sweet for a dessert.  Then again, if you're looking for something less sweet, this may be the cake for you!

Traveling to Mongolia

Last fall, three friends and I traveled to Mongolia for 19 days - plus two days spent entirely in transit - and had a great time.  Mongolia isn't the first place most people think of for a vacation, and none of us remember how we got on the topic, but we'd been planning to go for several years (2016 was the first that worked out for all of us) and so we had plenty of time to do research in advance.

The road to Baga Gazariin Chuluu

We scoured the internet and made a list of all of the potential tour groups we found that seemed to offer a tour about the length we'd be interested in.  Then, we narrowed it down by price, scope, exact dates, customization options, and personal factors.  In the end, we settled on Dream Mongolia, specifically on a slightly extended version of their Discover Mongolia tour, which was one of the first tours I had ever looked at online.  Not only does the company offer customizable tours for any dates, they offer private tours to small groups at very reasonable prices, so you're not just thrown together with a bunch of strangers; it's completely owned and operated by Mongolians; and it's all-expenses-paid: lodging, meals, entry fees, gasoline, and bottled water.

View from Uran Volcano

The only thing not included is airfare - you have to get yourself to Ulaanbaatar, and then Dream Mongolia takes over.  The easiest ways to get there, from the United States, is through Korea, Japan, or China.  Having friends who had traveled to Mongolia before, they unilaterally recommended Korean and Japanese airlines - when someone else is footing the bill.  The fact is, flying through Beijing was almost $1,000 USD cheaper per person, round-trip, so that's what we did.  And you can fly to and transfer in Beijing without a visa, but the Chinese travel bureaucracy is every bit as annoying as the American one.  Because we had to change terminals, that meant getting a 24-hour travel visa to get through customs and security, then actually going through customs and security; taking the shuttle to the other terminal; back through customs and security, re-checking the bags; and waiting for our flight.  We had 7-hour layovers each way,  three hours of which was taken up exclusively with getting to our gate.

View from Ongi Temple

Our itinerary differed from the standard in that, with a few extra days, we drove to South Gobi instead of flying from Ulaanbaatar, so we detoured through Terelj National Park and got to adjust to life on (what passes for) the road in Mongolia.  Parts of the country - namely, around the capital - there are paved roads that would be recognized as such by foreigners.  Get more than an hour outside the capital, though, and the paved roads turn to dirt roads, which turn to dirt ruts, which turn to nearly trackless wilderness.  Our driver had been all over the country all summer, so he never got turned around, but there didn't seem to be many landmarks to navigate by, either, so consider yourself warned: if you're trying to drive across Mongolia, a map won't help you much.

Bayanzag - the Flaming Cliffs

Unfortunately, the lack of roads means even people that don't normally suffer from motion sickness are likely to feel it; I've always suffered from it pretty badly, so I brought a whole drug cocktail to keep it under control; everyone else got by mostly with ginger chews and occasionally borrowing a Dramamine or Bonine pill, but here's your second warning: no matter how sure you are you'll be fine, bring something to help with motions sickness; you will need it.

Hills by Terkhiin Tsagaan - the White Lake

On top of that, I managed to pick up a nasty cold at the Beijing airport; I had a hard time adjusting to the altitude due to being sick and constantly motion-sick; and, about 4 days in, we managed to get food poisoning.  All the travel guides will tell you "don't drink unfiltered water," "don't eat fresh veggies," "don't try the street food;" we did all of those things and were just fine.  Judging by who got sick and to what degree, it was a plate of well-cooked spicy goat meat that did it, and, in all our time there, the only meal that gave us trouble.

Camp near the Yol Valley

Unfortunately, it was enough trouble, for me at least, that when our next day saw us traveling through Dalanzadgad, the capital of Omnogovi province, our guide suggested we stop at the local hospital (which turned out to be more of a clinic) and I get some medicine, since I hadn't been able to eat anything since the previous afternoon.  It was a Sunday, unfortunately, so the clinic was mostly closed, but after some wandering around and asking for directions we managed to find a nurse who was willing to give me two bags of saline, some more anti-emetic medication, and some Indonesian medicated powder that tasted like the worst kind of fizzy orange drink and no amount of tea could dilute the taste out.  I wasn't up for much hiking the rest of the trip, but I did start to feel better, and here's some more advice for you: buy medical insurance before you go.  The entire afternoon's treatment ended up costing me about $30 USD, but I still got full reimbursement from my medical insurance, and you never know how expensive medical care will be.

View from the Khongor Sand Dunes

Nonetheless, we soldiered on, and even though it was the very end of August, we only had one really chilly night; filling our ger's stove with pinewood the following night turned out to be a mistake, when the night stayed mild and our tent got so hot we couldn't get to sleep until after midnight.  Four of us meant we could swap out who we bunked with different nights, though, since the standard tourist-camp gers only have 2 beds; one of the big fancy ones we stayed at near Lake Khuvsgul had 4 beds in it, but the camp only had one ger of that size, and we only stayed in it because the rest of the camp was empty.

Floodpath near Lake Khuvsgul

The tourist camps that we stayed at had more amenities than we had planned for - bathrooms with western-style showers and toilets, a large central dining and rec hall, and gers (yurts) with full amenities - usually two twin beds, some chairs and perhaps a small table, a woodstove for heat, and extra towels and blankets.  The food was quite good and diverse - much better than what we found in the Mongolian restaurants we visited - and the guides could set the menu ahead of time.  An Italian group that overlapped with ours the beginning of the trip got spaghetti and pasta for several nights; after the food poisoning, we found soup on our menu for several days; and with two of our group trying to eat vegetarian, we had less meat in our mixed dishes than usual.

In the Yol Valley

The end of August seemed like the perfect time to visit Mongolia - it was never crushingly hot, even in the Gobi, and although we had one cold night and a few cool days, we never needed more than a jacket.  It was the very end of tourist season, though, and it showed - by the middle of our trip, we were often the only group staying at the tourist camps, and the owners were often starting to pack up the empty gers for the winter.  By the end, the children had all gone off to towns or the capital city for school, which started on September 1st; our translator was a university professor, and never did tell us how he managed to schedule our tour to run a few days past the beginning of the term.

Riding near the Khongor Sand Dunes

I'm not sure what our driver did when he wasn't driving tourists around - I never heard him speak a word of English, but I suspect he understood it pretty well.  He knew a lot of people around the country, too, and would time our rest-stops to be by the gers and camps of people he knew, or take off in the evening after dropping us at tourist camps to visit people he knew.  Our guide, on the other hand, stayed at camp with us, chatted with the proprietors and the locals, and tried to teach us bits of Mongolian while he worked on his English (which was excellent; everyone's English was excellent in Mongolia).  When we taught him how to play Bananagrams, he insisted we play it every evening, and was thinking of developing a Mongolian version; we gave him our English one when we left, along with a few other gifts we'd brought along for our guide, driver, and various hosts: postcards and pictures of Alaska, key rings and hats, and candy for the kids and families.

The Mongolian Steppe

Despite all of our traveling - over 2,000 miles - we still only ended up seeing a fraction of the country; the Altai Mountains in the West are famous for the Kazakh hunters that live there, and birthplace of Genghis Khan is farther east of the capital than we ventured, so there's plenty to go back for someday.  While the tours, like ours, that include almost-constant travel can be exhausting, they're definitely the fastest and easiest way to see a lot of the country, and Mongolia has plenty worth seeing.

Amarbayasgalant Monastery

So you want to move to Juneau (Alaska)....

I moved to Juneau, Alaska, fresh out of graduate school, almost 5 years ago.  I did some research before I came up, but I only had a month between the job offer and when I started working, so that didn't give me a lot of planning time for the move.  Thankfully, I didn't have a lot of stuff to move, much less anything valuable to worry about leaving behind, but there wasn't a great deal of information out there, and I didn't really feel like I knew what I was getting into.  It all worked out in the end, but for others who may have an interest (or necessity) to move here, I can at least provide some information.

Mountain from the Gastineau Channel

Some Things About Juneau

Juneau has been the capital city of Alaska since 1906.  It's in Southeast Alaska, surrounded by the Tongass National Forest, the nation's largest national forest and a temperate rainforest.  By "temperate," I mean the annual temperature usually ranges from 0 degrees Fahrenheit up to about 75 degrees.  Even in winter, it's unusual to be below freezing for long, and almost never drops below 0.  Conversely, in summer, even on sunny days, it rarely rises above 70 degrees.  Sunny days are rare year-round, though; it rains almost daily, with a yearly average of over 60 inches of rainfall.  

The city itself is on a narrow ocean channel that runs between mountains, and includes a few valleys that the glaciers have retreated from.  There's a bridge leading to Douglas Island, which used to be its own town but incorporated with Juneau in the 1970's.  The road runs approximately 50 miles - 10 miles south of downtown Juneau, and 40 miles north - plus 15 miles along the coast of Douglas Island.

There's no road access into or out of Juneau, though.  Cars have to come up by ferry or barge, and people come by boat or airplane.  The Alaska Marine Highway System serves Southeast and Southcentral Alaska, with many stops in Juneau and surrounding villages, and Alaska Air has been the main airline operating out of Juneau, with Delta Air recently trying to get back into the game.

Meadow north of Juneau

So what's it like living in Juneau?

Over the past 40 years or so, many of the people who moved up to Alaska have come from the Upper Midwest, where I grew up, so culturally I feel right at home.  Prices are high because of shipping costs, but no higher than those in any of the big cities on the West Coast.  Most people own cars, most houses have city water and sewer, and most Juneauites work 9-5 office jobs.  There are avalanches, and occasionally a glacier collapse will cause a river to flood, but most people have been sensible enough not to build in the obvious natural-disaster paths that these things leave on the landscape.

Also, it rains.  A lot.  The long summer days are evened out by being universally gloomy.  Bring rainboots and a raincoat - you'll need them.  You can buy them locally, too - it's something of a local tradition to get married in Xtra Tuffs, with good reason.  Winter makes it even rougher, with rain alternating with snow and the daylight cut down by having mountains in the east and west.  If you're prone to Seasonal Affective Disorder, bring a full spectrum light and keep busy during the winter.

The miserable winters have improved the city's cultural offerings, as people need to keep busy.  Our annual Folk Festival is one of the biggest folk music festivals in the nation.  Perseverance Theater and Theater in the Rough both put on plays pretty much year-round.  The Juneau Symphony and Student Symphony do 3 concerts a year, each.  The Juneau Lyric Opera, Bach Society, and Jazz and Classics are also musical options.  We have a Roller Derby, Hockey association, Skating club, and a bunch of other extracurriculars.  The restaurants have improved significantly since I moved here, although for fast food, we only have one McDonald's and a few Subways.  No Starbucks, either - the local coffee company is Heritage, which does a good job, but won't take your Starbucks card.

What Juneau doesn't have is shops.  For groceries and outdoor gear, you're covered, but it's impossible to find, say, nice clothes in Juneau.  Most people take special shopping trips up to Anchorage or down to Seattle if they need to make any big purchases.  You can buy cars in Juneau, also - new or used - but not a new custom order, which all have to get shipped up from Seattle, so most people go down there to pick out cars, too.  Amazon will ship free to Alaska, but many other online providers will charge extra or will refuse service complete.

Juneau also doesn't have a big city feel, no matter that it's one of Alaska's hubs.  Most of the people I talk to that live here and are unhappy about it have previously lived in a large city (Chicago, New York, London, etc.) and are missing that vibe.  If you have a job here that allows you enough vacation time, you can take one or two long trips a year, and many people take advantage of that.  If you don't get a lot of paid vacation, or can't afford it, then Juneau can feel like a claustrophobic backwater.  Having grown up in an actual backwater, it feels plenty metropolitan to me. 

Taiga at Eaglecrest Ski Resort

How hard is it to visit Juneau?

Ridiculously easy.  Tourism is our second biggest industry, with cruise ships bringing 1,000,000 visitors every summer.  The entire downtown area is dedicated to the cruise ship industry, with almost half of the shops only open while cruise ships are in port.  There are daily flights in and out of Juneau, and (in the summer) daily ferries from the Alaska Marine Highway, cut down to several times a week in the winter.  There are a bunch of standard hotel chains around the airport, including Super 8, Travelodge, Best Western, Extended Stay America, and local chains like Frontier Suites and Aspen Suites.  In the Downtown area, there's the Baranof, Prospector, and Goldbelt.  There's also a bunch of little bed-and-breakfasts and people willing to let out their houses for petsitters, couchsurfers, or AirBnBers.  

Forest near Windfall Lake

How hard is it to move to Juneau?

I would say, not very, but I came with a job lined up, and that was my only goal.  Housing is tight - vacancy is approximately 3.5% - many landlords won't rent sight-unseen to people trying to move to town, and it's almost impossible to find a place to live that allows pets.  My future coworkers helped me line up an apartment that I love, but if you don't have local contacts to help you, the Mendenhall Apartments in Downtown Juneau almost always have vacancy.  They're not the cheapest or the newest, but if you need a place to stay, it's one of the few you can rely on.  There's also the Juneau Hostel, which allows stays of up to 5 days, but you can only be in the building at night - they clean during the day, so you  have to take all your belongings between 9AM and 5PM.  There's also Craigslist, but keep in mind that this page serves all of Southeast Alaska, so what looks like a great deal in Ketchikan or Haines is so, because it's not accessible from Juneau - you can't commute.

Mendenhall Glacier

When's the best time to move there?

 To be honest: fall or early winter.  Juneau has 3 distinct seasons: Legislature (January-April), Tourist (May-September), and the off-season (October-December).  While the Legislature is in session, all of the congressmembers, lobbyists, and staffers come to Juneau looking for temporary housing.  Right as they leave, the tourist workers come to town looking for the same.  The cruise ships usually stop coming the end of September, and by October the tourist shops are shuttered and their workers are shipped elsewhere by the cruise companies for the winter season.  This leaves rental properties available, and it may even be possible to move in just until the Legislature meets again (January), to give yourself a few months to acclimate and find an apartment of your choosing if your first stop isn't something you want to keep. 

Windfall Lake

How hard is it to get a job in Juneau?

I can't really speak to this, having lined one up before I got here, but most of the people who ask about it seem to think they'll move here and trip over job offers.  Most of the employment in town is office work, since this is the capital and the federal, state, and local offices are almost all located here.  Being government, though, hiring can be slow, and that's assuming there's a job opening that you qualify for.  You could get a minimum-wage job in a big box store or food service, but that won't be enough to pay rent.  And despite some fishing, logging, and mining opportunities in the area - and well-paying ones at that - I haven't found them easy to get contacts for, leaving me to believe that if you have a friend willing to refer you, you've got a chance, but if you don't already know people in the industry, you're going to have a rough time.  

Ebner Falls

Is it easy to get around in Juneau?

Once you're here, yes, it's easy to travel around town.  The roads go pretty much anywhere that you need to go, whether you have a car or borrow or rent one.  We have a city bus service that covers most of the road system - it doesn't go south of Downtown Juneau or north of Auke Bay, but reaches everything in between, including Douglas.  There's also a bike path that follows Glacier Highway, running from Downtown Juneau to the Mendenhall Valley.  Electric vehicles have become more popular in the past few years, and there are several charging stations in parking lots and parking garages.  Almost all of the hiking paths have road access and parking, or are connected to a path that does, and there is a tram running from Downtown Juneau to the top of Mt. Roberts, so even the wilderness is accessible.

Mount Juneau

Are there a bunch of wild animals?

Yes and no.  Juneau has wildlife, no worse than anywhere else in the western United States, and not nearly as bad as some places.  We have almost no moose or brown bears, and black bears are not very dangerous.  Coyotes are starting to move into the area, but haven't historically lived here, and there are no big cats, skunks, raccoons, buffalo, or elk.  The climate makes it hard for spiders, reptiles, and amphibians to survive, so we have almost none of them here, and nothing poisonous.  Nature photography is quite popular, though, with so many bald eagles, whales of varying kinds, sea lions, marmots, and more common species like porcupines, blacktail deer, foxes, and ravens on offer. 

Snowslide Gulch

What's this about free Alaska money?

You mean the Alaska Permanent Fund.  The State of Alaska taxes the oil companies that operate in the state; those taxes get invested to earn income.  Every year, the state looks at the annual average of the past 5 years' growth, divides it by the number of Alaska residents, and mails everyone a check.  You have to be a legal Alaska resident, have physically been in the state, and a few other restrictions, but everyone, even infants, qualify if they're on Alaskan soil by January 1.  In 2013, the PFD was $900 (due to the Recession); in 2015, it was about $2,000.  With the recent extreme drop in oil prices, the Fund's future isn't looking stable, and no one knows how long or how well it will last.

Mossy tree

In Conclusion...

I'm very happy here, and certainly enjoy the clean air and quality of life.  I'd enjoy spending pretty much the rest of my life here - Alaska has a lot of financial incentives for retired folks, countered by Juneau's winter iciness and having only one small hospital, all of that could easily change in the next 50 years.

Having been here for a while, I've probably lost sight of many of the considerations I had to make in moving up here, and have missed some important points, so if there's anything you'd like to know, just leave a comment, and I'll add my answers to the post. 

For further reading, you can look at Elise Tomlinson's blog, where she goes over similar questions.

Dragon cake

I was recently given ThinkGeek's dragon cake pan as a present, and finally had an excuse to use it.

I've never used a molded cake pan before, and this one doesn't come with instructions, so I read up on some advice for how to use them: grease well, and flour to keep the batter from sticking in the tiny crevices; cook about 25 degrees Fahrenheit lower than the recipe calls for, and for longer; and make sure the batter settles well into the pan and sets up before you remove it.

Having some leftover ingredients, I went back to one of my favorite recipes, a pumpkin gingerbread dough that normally makes 2 bread-sized loaves.  I make a few modifications to it, though - use 1/2 cup applesauce and 1/2 cup oil, instead of a full cup oil, and at least double all of the spices listed, or it will be far too bland.  You can also throw in some fresh grated ginger, along with the dried ginger.

Not knowing quite how much batter should go into the mold, I hedged at about 3/4 full, and put the rest into muffin tins.  I cooked it at 325 degrees F, instead of 350; the muffins came out after 20 minutes, while the cake itself cooked for almost 1 hour 45 minutes, but could probably have come out a bit sooner if I was in a hurry.

Turns out, for this recipe at least, I could have fit the whole 2 loaves' worth of batter into the tin, but now I know that for the future.  It also turns out this pan is super non-stick, and I probably would have been just fine with oiling it and not dusting with flour, which turned into the yellow highlights you can see as it came out of the mold.

Since I was planning on glazing it anyway, the unsightly flour didn't make much difference, but if it doesn't upset the flavor balance, you can dust for darker-colored cakes with cocoa powder rather than flour.

I find this gingerbread works best with an orange glaze to set off the spices, but getting the right consistency of glaze is more important for a molded cake than a regular one, where you want to keep the features visible.  I settled on this icing recipe, with about 1/4 of a large orange's zest grated in to give it the right flavor.  I needed to use almost twice as much milk as the recipe called for to get it to the right consistency, where it would pour and stick but not flow down into all the hollows on the cake.

After the icing sets up, it's time to paint!  I just used regular, liquid food coloring that you can get in any store.  I squeezed the food coloring directly onto a small paintbrush, and then painted in the details that I wanted.

It took longer than I expected, and the food coloring softened the icing and made it a bit runny again, but it wasn't hard to work around.

Having only 4 colors limited my palette a bit - using gel food coloring would give much brighter colors, and would allow you to mix them on a plate to produce different combinations.

Still, it turned out better than expected, and I now have a feel for how to do it next time - I just need another excuse to use it.

Edit: I've made it a few more times, trying out different recipes and colors.  Moist cakes (like the one above) seem to take extra long to cook; standard cakes, like from cake mixes, take a bit longer than the posted recipe; drier cakes, like pound cakes, you need to watch to keep from overcooking, as they don't take as long as you would expect.  I suppose that's one of the joys of working with cake molds: the standard recipes do not apply.

Grandmother's Cookbooks & Old-Timey Recipes

My grandmother recently got her first computer and, taking advice to learn how it works, was transcribing some of her old recipes.  While I was visiting, I offered to digitize some of the shorter cookbooks for her, which she was glad to accept.  We didn't have access to a scanner, mine being some 2,000 miles away, so I apologize in advance for the potato-quality photos from my old phone.  I touched up the contrast to make them a little more legible, but some are blurry.

First up is the Occident Photo-Method Recipes for Bread, Rolls, and Fancy Breads.  I believe the cover and last page are missing, since it ends on 30 instead of 31.

Next is a pie-making pamphlet.  The first 4 pages of this one are missing, and I can only assume the last 4 are also, so I don't have enough information to identify it.

The last two pamphlets were both published by Proctor and Gamble, the creators of Crisco, sometime after World War II.  The first one, Pie: America's Favorite Dessert, is about, obviously, pies.  The signature, Janie Bliss, is my great-grandmother's.

And, last but not least, is Cakes and Cookies, also signed by my great-grandmother.  Back then, the singular of cookies was "cooky," so it's not a typo.

These recipes were the staple of my grandmother's baking, and she still uses some of them today (as you can tell by the stains and splatters), so if you're looking for some old-fashioned baking, try out one of these.