Quince Cottage: Lemon

Monday, July 4, 2016

Lemon Blueberry Zucchini Bread - Recipe

Hello there and welcome to Quince Cottage! Happy 4th of July, if you celebrate! It was pretty low-key around here, since half of the family is in retail and had to work. Here's a red, white, and blue vignette I put together for a fun, non-traditional take.

©Rhiann Wynn-Nolet

Sorry we've been slacking in the blog department lately. We've been busy getting our Etsy shop up and running. If you'd like to take a look at what we're offering, click here, we'd love a visit!

But now, on to the star of this post -- a delicious-to-eat and easy-to-make recipe that gives you a fabulous option for all those zucchini your garden, or your neighbor's, has been yielding. The bread itself is not super sweet, so if you like things on the less-sweet side, skip the glaze. If you've got a sweet tooth, drizzle on, my friends...

Ingredients:
2 C cake flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 1/3C white sugar
1/2 C canola oil
1/2 C buttermilk
2 TBS fresh lemon juice
Zest of 1 lemon
1 C grated zucchini (squeeze some of the water out between paper towels)
1 C fresh blueberries (plus extra for garnish)

Directions:
1. Combine cake flour, salt, and baking powder in a medium size bowl. Add blueberries and stir in gently. Set aside.
2. Beat the two eggs, add the vanilla, white sugar, canola oil, buttermilk, lemon juice, lemon juice, and zucchini, stirring between each addition.
3. Add dry ingredients to wet, in batches.
4. Turn into greased 9 x 5 loaf pan.
5. Bake for 50-55 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit (toothpick test).
6. Set on wire rack in pan for 15 minutes. Remove from pan, Drizzle glaze over the top if desired.

Glaze (Optional)
Ingredients:
1 1/4C confectioner's sugar
3 TBS lemon juice
1 TBS light cream or milk

Directions:
Combine ingredients and whisk until smooth. Drizzle over bread while the bread is still warm.

And there you have it!

©Rhiann Wynn-Nolet

Why yes, it WAS just as good as it looks!

Buster and Daisy have been enjoying early morning exercise lately, because it's just way too darn hot to walk after about ten o'clock. Summer in east central North Carolina doesn't mess around. The rest of their day is spent napping, doing sentry duty, tearing stuffies apart, and getting belly rubs. Hey, it's not such a bad life!

Daisy & Buster © Rhiann Wynn-Nolet

Don't forget to follow us on Instagram, so you can play our two hashtags.
#MagpieMonday is for collectors of decor items, A few of our players were recently featured in Country Living Magazine!

#HometownCapture is a chance for you to have a pic of your hometown featured in a collage with others in our gallery.

And one last reminder before you go, don't forget to check out our Etsy shop. Some of the items in these vignettes are available for sale (at least at the time of posting, they may not last very long).

Click on the meme below to go right to the shop!

©Rhiann Wynn-Nolet

Quince Cottage Style is #agrarianchic - a mix of old and new, rustic and opulent.

Our goal is to make our new subdivision house look inviting, beautiful,

and as though it wasn't born yesterday!

Friday, April 22, 2016

Recipe: Lemon 7Up Bundt Cake

Welcome to Quince Cottage!
As you may already know, we like to mix it up a little. While the majority of our posts are decor-related/DIYs, occasionally we share a favorite recipe. Which brings us to this cake, which Rhiann first enjoyed quite a few years ago at a work party. Credit goes to "Karen", and honestly we don't know where Karen got the recipe. At any rate, it's a keeper! The crust gets almost crunchy like a cookie, while the inside is moist and tender. Plus, the lovely lemon flavor. It's all good!
Now that it's feeling spring-like down here in the South, a lemony dessert seems like just the thing. So, wouldn't you know, the one ingredient Rhiann forgot to buy was the lemon extract! She only realized this after getting all the other ingredients out of the fridge and pantry. Good thing there's a grocery store about five minutes away. And on a positive note, that gave the soda time to come to room temperature, so all's well that ends well, right?

Ingredients:

8 oz. whipped butter
1/2 C Crisco shortening
8 oz. 7Up (room temperature)
5 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp lemon extract
3 C flour
3 C sugar

Optional Glaze Ingredients:

1 stick butter
1 small package cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 C confectioner's sugar
(Combine butter and cream cheese. Add vanilla and mix in. Add confectioner's sugar, 1/4 C at a time).

Directions:

1. Combine first 6 ingredients, in order (add eggs one at a time). We used a stand mixer with the whip attachment and if we'd had a splash guard, we would have used it. Don't worry if it seems like the soda and the butter/Crisco combo will never become "one". Once you add the eggs, things start to improve (but still look pretty funky).
2. Mix sugar and flour together and then add to wet mixture in batches. Once the batter is smooth, it's ready to pour in the pan.
3. Grease a bundt pan. We used cooking spray and it didn't work 100%, so greasing might be better.
4. Cook at 300 degrees F for one hour (put cake in when the oven is cold). Raise oven temperature to 350 degrees F and cook 15 more minutes.
5. Allow to cool 15 minutes and then remove from pan.
6. Allow to cool thoroughly before glazing if you do the glaze. We sprinkled confectioner's sugar instead, which did a fairly decent job of camouflaging the spots where the cake didn't unmold perfectly.

Here's what the cake looked like when first removed from the oven.