Applesauce cake a 3-year-old can make

When Anna and I want to bake something yummy for snack time, this is one of our staples. It's super easy, not too sweet, and works nicely for breakfast (it's actually quite healthy) but disguises itself as a “treat”.

As with most things I bake, I modified the original recipe to include whole wheat flour, and I dramatically cut back on the sugar.

After it's cooled, you can make it a little sweeter, and a little more fun, by dusting with powdered sugar. And don't think this cake is only good if you have kids — it's perfect for that 3 p.m. pick me up with a cup of coffee.

And no, Anna did not clone herself! That other head-banded beauty is Anna's friend, Emma — because applesauce cake is best when shared!

Enjoy!

Applesauce Cake (modified from FamilyFun, September 2007)

1 cup whole wheat flour
2/3 cup white flour
1 t baking soda
3/4 t cinnamon
1/4 t nutmeg
1/4 t cloves
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 large egg plus 1 yolk
1 t vanilla
1 cup unsweetened applesauce

Mix dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add in eggs and sugar. Add applesauce and dry ingredients and mix (with a spoon, not the beaters). Bake at 350 in a 9-inch, sprayed (or buttered) cake pan for 35-45 minutes (the time can really vary — you want it to be firm but not too hard.) Let cool for an hour if you can stand the wait — then dust with powdered sugar (or not) at enjoy!

My day job

As much as I love this bloggy goodness, it doesn't pay the bills. For that I am lucky enough to have a great job with a wonderful boss — me! I am a graphic designer and, through a combination of choice and luck, I work primarily with universities and non-profit organizations on their printed (usually) materials.

For the past six months I have been working on my dream project — the annual report for Mercy Corps, a humanitarian aid organization working globally to help people in a huge variety of ways. If you're curious, you can view the full annual report that I designed here. It's a large pdf, so it can take a while to fully load if you're not on a fast internet connection. I am so proud of this piece, both because of the people it represents and because I believe it is my best work to date.

Wilbur

There is very little stuff that remains from my childhood. This stems partly from my previously-mentioned tendency to purge when I feel overwhelmed by clutter, and partly because I've moved a lot. David and have moved 8 times (in 4 states) in the 16 (gasp!) years that we've lived together.

But lately I've become more sentimental. It's due in large part to the death of my dad, but I also think being a mom and hitting the 40-milestone both tie in as well.

When I was a kid, Wilbur sat on the passthrough between our postage-stamp-sized kitchen and our dining room, always there as a visible reminder that there just might be cookies to be had. Frankly, there usually weren't (a result of nonexistent baking skills and frequent calorie-counting on my mother's part).

On our most recent trip to Florida, I finally brought Wilbur home to Portland. Anna was so excited when the UPS truck arrived with the box he was in. As soon as I unpacked him, she was hugging and kissing him (despite the fact that he most certainly needed a bath!).

Wilbur was washed and filled the following day. For now, he's got some little, kid-friendly cookies from Trader Joe's in his belly, but soon he will be filled with yummy, homemade delights that Anna will grow up both loving and taking totally for granted. Wilbur and his belly of love and plenty will just be there throughout her childhood.

And many years from now, when Anna has a child of her own, I'll give her Wilbur and he will mean to her then what he means to me now. Home.

Drunk with color

Yesterday Anna and I walked up the street to our neighborhood library. I brought my camera to shoot some photos of the local color on the way. Three hours (!!!) later, we completed our 10-block circle, drunk with all the beautiful colors. I don't know if Portland is stunningly, ridiculously beautiful this time of year or if we're all just so starved for color after the long, grey winter that we're easily cheered. Either way, it's all everyone talks of these days — the blue sky, the sun, the flowers popping up everywhere.

Of course, today we're back to grey again, so I'm giving these photos to you as my gift, to fill your days with color until the sunshine beckons again. Sort of like Frederic, one of my favorite childhood stories by Leo Lionni, a graphic designer turned children's book illustrator back in the 1960s.

Enjoy!

Spring, part 2

This weekend was typical of Portland this time of year — too many fun activities to choose from. Since we had temperatures in the 70s for the first time in months, we opted for an outside adventure. Although we had no idea what trilliums were, we headed south to Tryon Creek State Park for the Trillium Festival.

The park itself is only about 10 miles south of Portland, right next to Lewis & Clark College. And trilliums are lovely, 3-petaled flowers which bloom there this time of year. The park has lots of trails for all levels or hiker — we opted for the easiest since it was Anna's first time and I, true to form, was dressed exactly wrong for the circumstances.

We strolled for a bit, looked for wildlife, and brought home a trillium of our own which Anna and David planted in the back yard.

She wants to be a dactah!

Upon leaving the West Boca pediatric ER at 5 am after Anna was diagnosed with pneumonia:

Anna: Mama, when I grow up I want to be a doctor.

Me: That's great, honey. What makes you say that?

Anna: Because I want to hurt people the way they hurt me tonight.

Down the rabbit hole

It's gotten to the point where I could spend my entire life on the web. Between blogs and Etsy, there is now this spiral where one thing takes me to the next and so on until I am so deep in other peoples amazing talent that I just have to come up for air.

The latest example of this began at The Black Apple. Actually, that's not even true. I can't even remember which blog led me there, but they were featuring little collections of things and I clicked on a painting of Emily's at The Black Apple. Turns out not only is she yet another Portlander, but I had marked her as a favorite on Etsy when I first discovered it over a year ago.

Perusing her amazing work, I landed on these paper dolls, which I instantly loved. At first I thought I'd get them for Anna and save them until she's older. But then I read Emily's suggestion of framing the sheets just as they are. I love that idea because, really? They're for me. They will be hanging in my office just as soon as they arrive. And maybe, when she's older, I'll share them with Anna!

Anyway, The Black Apple's Etsy shop led me to wonder if Emily has a blog, which of course she does. Actually, she has not one, but two blogs. The main blog, Inside a Black Apple, shows her work, as well as other designy/inspirationy things. Her second blog, Some Girls Wander, is her fashion blog, which is to say it's mostly photos of her in the cutest outfits you ever saw. She has the kind of style I'm sometimes tempted to imitate, but which can only be pulled off if it's genuine.

From her fashion site, I was led to HEL-looks, a site featuring photos of street and club fashion from Helsinki, Finland! Who knew?!

Writing it down here, it doesn't sound like the time-sink that it was, but now all of these new discoveries are on my NetNewsWire feed (I have finally got the subscription-thing down!). I think in the future I'll be changing up my list of blog addictions on the right a bit more frequently to share the love.

If you've discovered some blog/Etsy site that you'd like to share, please let me know in the comments. You've all been so quiet lately I'm starting to wonder if you're still out there. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?