Solstice in Seattle

I’ve been remiss. Last week the Seattle summer finally caught up with me. It’s not exactly the midnight sun, but Seattle’s extended daylight hours have a similar effect on me. I get up early, work all day, have dinner at 10 o’clock, stay up way too late and then do it again. Until Thursday, when I finally crashed.

But there’s nothing like the Fremont Summer Solstice Parade to start the cycle all over again! For the most part, Seattle is a little stuffy when it comes to celebrations. Our attitude seems to be, “Fine idea for a party, but not in MY neighborhood!” But not Fremont. Fremont opens its arms to Seattle for the annual Solstice Festival, and renews my faith that Seattleites can indeed, shake it. Any event that starts with hundreds of nude cyclists in all manors of exotic body paint cannot, by definition, be stuffy. And the parade continued on from there with great music, dancing, humor, costumes, creativity, political commentary, and the occasional strange spiritual displays that I couldn’t figure out. Fremont in a nutshell.

Every year my friend, John, hosts his annual pre-parade brunch. It begins with his own parade of furniture down to the parade route to stake a claim of sidewalk, this year under the shade of a big tree. Each year I expect John, an avid cyclist, to disappear before the start of the parade only to reappear beautifully painted and peddling by. Perhaps next year. But this year, his house was the staging ground for the fabulous costuming efforts of the “Fantasia Girls” who danced with a samba group. He’s going to be sweeping up feathers and glitter, with a smile on his face, for weeks to come. While we were eating a fabulous brunch, we had our own little parade of peacock feathered and bejeweled beauties swooping in and out for mimosas.

As usual, John hosts a mean brunch. There were lots of delicious homemade treats- James’ salsa and feta eggs, John’s garlic and goodies eggs, some vegan scrambled tofu with mixed greens, Gretchen’s gluten free banana muffins and garden grown strawberries, some lovely fruit salads, and my contribution, a raspberry breakfast cake. I got the recipe from Alanna's blog, a few weeks ago and have made it twice, it’s so delicious. I changed a few ingredients to make it a bit more breakfast friendly, but it’s a great recipe as is, and could be served for dessert as well. I changed the all-purpose flour to a combination of all-purpose and whole wheat pastry flours, and oat bran. And I cut down the sugar to a scant 1 cup. I also bumped up the buttermilk to accommodate the hardier flours and omitted the glaze. The first time I made it, it came out of the pan beautifully, but the second time, part of it stuck and it had to be puzzle-pieced back together again. A quick garnish of powdered sugar, with a tiny bouquet of roses, lavender, and mint in the center, fixed it right up again. With the berries beginning to ripen here in Seattle, I’ll be sure to make this again before the season’s over.

This would make a great breakfast with a dollop of yogurt.

Raspberry Breakfast Cake

¾ cup unsalted butter, softened
scant 1 cup sugar
Zest from 1 orange, or 2 limes or lemons
1 Tablespoon vanilla
3 eggs at room temperature
1 ½ cups all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
½ cup oat bran
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
scant 1 cup buttermilk

12 ounces frozen raspberries
1 tablespoon flour

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F.

Cream butter and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on high speed. Add zest and vanilla. One at a time, beat in eggs.

In a separate bowl, stir together the flours, oat bran, baking powder and salt.

On the lowest speed of the mixer, gently add 1/3 of the buttermilk, ½ of the flour mixture, 1/3 of the buttermilk, ½ of the flour mixture, 1/3 of the buttermilk. (Begin and end with the buttermilk and scrape down the mixer after each addition.)

Separately, stir together berries and 1 tablespoon flour. By hand, stir berries into batter.

Transfer batter to well-greased and sugared Bundt pan. Bake for 60 – 75 minutes, until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool 30 minutes, gently turn onto serving plate. Let cool another 30 minutes. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve.

Serves 12

Comments

[Alanna]

Hi Kat -

SO glad you enjoyed the raspberry cake, I LOVE the changes you made. Would you believe I'd already cut the sugar by more than half? YIKES it was soo too sweet before! I had trouble with it sticking once, decided it was maybe because the cake wasn't completely cool when I took it out of the pan.

BTW this might be an addition to next year's parade, it's the annual favorite at "our corner" during the 4th of July parade in my hometown in northern Minnesota. It's a standard gin and tonic, but made with Seagram's gin and a thin slice of cucumber, including some skin, as the stirrer. It seems pretty racy to be drinking G&Ts at 11 in the morning but this year the parade was at 2 so we decided we were being quite proper. ;-)