Creative Spirits Soar!

Bullet Point Blessings for May 8, 2020

Artists are different. 

Artists are in a perpetual search for inspiration... for beauty, joy, light, magic. 

Artists are inventive, expressive, adventurous, and intuitive with an overwhelming desire to share their world. 

I am such an artist. _____________________________________________________________________________________

"An egg today is better than a hen tomorrow."

~Benjamin Franklin

♥ Farm Eggs

Little things mean a lot. I'm so happy to have a connection to fresh farm eggs. I don't know what kind of chickens these beauties came from, but was delighted to find a variety of Easter Egg colors in the two dozen I purchased. Included were dark brown, light tan, a variety of pale blues and greens. 

And they are delicious!

Can't wait to use them in the vintage cake I plan to make my Mom this weekend for her 80th birthday. Lovin' from the oven!

 

 

 

"A party without cake is really just a meeting."

~Julia Child

♥ Vintage Cakes

Just the word "Vintage" makes my heart skip a beat, so to discover the Vintage Cakes cookbook, it didn't take long to decide to purchase it. Included are recipes for Daffodil Cake, Lazy Daisy Oatmeal Cake, Honey Bee Cake, Kentucky Bourbon Cake, Chiffon Cake with Brown Butter Icing, Watergate Cake with Impeachment Icing, and a myriad of other delicious sweets. I plan to make Old Vermont Burnt Sugar Cake with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting first for this weekend. My family will be celebrating both Mother's Day and my mother's 80th birthday. If there ever was a time for a celebration, this weekend is it!

I haven't made it yet, but will take photos and document it on my blog Charm of the Carolines. So click over for a visit next week and hopefully I'll have the post written and published. 

For a treat today, allow me to share this recipe for Shoo-Fly Cake which looks amazing. 

Shoo-Fly Cake

INGREDIENTS

CRUMB TOPPING

• 1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into small cubes

CAKE

• 1 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 3/4 cup blackstrap molasses
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 2¹/2 cups (12¹/2 ounces) all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ¹/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 cup warm coffee (can be reheated from the morning brew)

DIRECTIONS

Center an oven rack and preheat the oven to 350^*F.

To make the crumb topping, combine the brown sugar and the flour in a small bowl. Toss in the butter cubes and, using your fingertips, pinch the butter into the dry ingredients to form crumbs. Place the bowl in the freezer while you make the cake.

To make the cake, whisk together the sugar, butter, molasses, and vanilla in a large bowl until smooth.

Blend in the eggs one at a time.In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt, then whisk the ingredients by hand to ensure they are well mixed.

Using a rubber spatula, stir the flour mixture into the batter in three additions, alternating with the coffee in two additions, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Pour the thin batter into the prepared pan (9 by 2-inch round cake pan, greased with 1 tablespoon of soft butter) and sprinkle with the chilled crumb topping. Bake in the center of the oven until the top is firm, about 45 minutes.

Cool the cake on a wire rack for about 30 minutes before serving warm from the pan.

 

"You're slower than molasses in winter."

~Old Southern Expression

♥ Molasses

Molasses is a thick dark syrup. The British call it treacle, which is a generic term for any syrup made as a by-product of refining sugar cane. Molasses was a popular and economical substitute for refined white sugar in the eighteenth century. By the end of the nineteenth century, it competed with maple sugar and white refined sugar as America's chosen sweetener.

When sugar prices dropped after World War I, molasses and maple sugar both fell in popularity. but not at the Jones house. I remember my granddaddy would take a tablespoon of butter and a big spoonful of molasses and smash it all together on the side of his breakfast plate in a very unappetizing goo. Then he would spread it on biscuits, lovingly prepared by my grandmother and hot from the oven. The butter in the gray-brown paste would melt, and at some point magic happened. 

(Please excuse the stock photo, but it is much more attractive than a photo of butter and molasses mashed together which doesn't photograph well at all.)

 

"If you love me, feed my sheep."

~Jesus Christ

♥ Olde English Babydoll Southdown Lambs

The Olde English 'Babydoll' Southdown is a breed of sheep developed in the United States to reflect the original type of Southdown brought over to North America by the early settlers.

Today, my friend Dianne invited me to the farm of her friends John and Linda to feed these somewhat timid lambs. The Swiss Valais Blacknose sheep were much friendlier and would eat out of the palm of my hand. So did the Scottish Blackface. The best I could accomplish with the tiny Babydoll was to feed her from a bucket. 

 

"Agriculture is the most healthful, most useful and most noble employment of man."

~George Washington

 

"My grandfather used to say that once in your life you need a doctor, a lawyer, a policeman, and a preacher. But every day, three times a day, you need a farmer."

~Brenda Schoepp

 

"Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals & happiness."

~Thomas Jefferson

 

 "We have neglected the truth that a good farmer is a craftsman of the highest order, a kind of artist."

~Wendell Berry

 

"What is a farm but a mute gospel?"

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

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In keeping with current CDC health recommendations for social distancing, we have canceled all in-person painting classes for the duration. I am praying for everyone's good health and well being.  Hopefully soon I will be able to publish a full roster of classes and paint with you again. (I'm keeping fingers crossed that will be in June.)

Please visit my Patreon Channel or  YouTube channel for painting demonstrations and inspiration. 

Please call me if you have additional questions or would like to purchase a gift certificate or register for a future class:

615-668-8263

       
These are a few of the paintings I've been working on. What's on your easel?? Post to social media and tag me to see #paintingwithsusan.

Links you may be interested in...

My ETSY Shops...

Colorful and Charming Art and Postcards from the Dimple of the Universe

Do you enjoy receiving a personal, hand-written card in the mail? Do you know someone who would, maybe a friend or family member away from home or now living in Assisted Living or a Nursing Home?

Postcards from the Dimple of the Universe is my Etsy shop that offers a subscription of 1-, 6-, or 12-handwritten cards, one each month, depicting an object or scene from my hometown, Columbia, Tennessee, aka the Dimple of the Universe or from around middle Tennessee, and delivered in a colorful envelope with a delightful US postage stamp.

It's a charming and unique gift for yourself or someone you love. 

 

Recommended Supplies lists...

Supplies List for Creative Spirits Classes, 

Adventure Awaits Supplies List, 

 

Back Issues of Bullet Point Blessings at Creative Spirits Soar! blog.

The Whole Kit & Kaboodle List of Lists

Painting at St. John's Episcopal Church en plein air

Sunday morning after FB Live church services, I was anxious to get out of the house. Quarantine will do that to you. Even alone, I didn't feel lonely painting en plein air at St. John's Episcopal church in Mt. Pleasant, Tennessee (formerly Ashwood).

 

Built in 1839, this exquisite historic church building was made with slave labor on 6 acres donated by Leonidas Polk, one of the Polk sons of Col. William Polk who settled the region after winning a very large tract of land in a bet with the governor of North Carolina on a game of chance called Rattle and Snap.

 

Leonidas built on the land gifted to him by his father a fine plantation home called Ashwood Hall. His brothers contributed the materials to build the "family chapel." The cemetery behind the church is the final resting place for several Civil War generals, plus Bishop James H. Otey (the first Bishop of Tennessee) and four other Bishops, plus members of the Polk family.

 

If it wasn't so close to the Mt. Pleasant Highway I could swear I stepped back in time 150 years while alone painting with the birds, trees and spirits of departed southerners whispering about me. I love this section of Tennessee, lovingly referred to as the "Dimple of the Universe" or "God's Garden."

 

Was also very thankful to make it home about an hour before an unprecedented Derecho storm hit, blowing over massive trees in its wake. I returned the next day to see if any of the "witness" trees at St. John's suffered any damage or the church building itself, and luckily all was well. Limbs blown everywhere, of course, some even very large, but all in all it fared well.

 

And before I hear any criticism of my work, I was painting WITHOUT YELLOW paint. Must have "borrowed" it from my plein air backpack over the winter. Bought a new tube this morning.