Monterey Bay Greenhouse Growers Open House 2014
“Think about it, Charles. You like it here? Yes. And you want to live here all your life?”
East of Eden, John Steinbeck
Inspiration
A greenhouse filled with vibrant gerberas made a spectacular setting for the 2014 Field to Vase Dinner at Kitayama Brothers Farms. With a table overflowing with flowers arranged by Christina Stembel, founder of Farmgirl Flowers and a fabulous dinner by Original Sin Desserts and Catering the 5th annual Monterey Bay Greenhouse Growers Open House began. Flowers and food were locally sourced reminding us that supporting our farmers and growers means a fresher product that also supports the local economy. As Chef Tanya DeCell described each dish we were filled with gratitude knowing that the Monterey Bay of central California shines as a producer of fresh produce and flowers. We spent Saturday touring the Greenhouses and came home with a dwarf Meyer lemon tree, two blueberry bushes, fresh produce, edible flowers and freshly cut roses. Filled with food and flowers this was my kind of weekend.
Essentials
Why use sprinkles to make a summer cake when edible flowers are so beautiful? When Cooking with Flowers was published I planned to make the beautiful Flowerfetti Cake on the dust jacket. With flower petals in the batter, frosting and as decoration the cake was a perfect fit for the Monterey Bay Greenhouse Growers Open House. The recipe makes a huge three layer cake using nine eggs and a cup and a half of butter. It also includes a massive amount of yogurt yielding a cake similar in texture and heft to a classic pound cake. The only change I made to the recipe was to use marigold sugar in place of the granulated sugar. Marigold sugar is simply granulated sugar whizzed in the food processor together with marigold petals. The sugar turns a sunny saffron orange that faintly smells and tastes of marigolds. To make the mini cakes I baked the batter in a half sheet pan lined with lightly buttered parchment paper for twenty minutes. There was enough batter left over to make four large cupcakes. I did encounter an issue with the frosting recipe. The cake recipe called for “8 cups (1 batch)” of Flower Frosting whereas the recipe referenced in the book only makes 3 cups. With only one block of cream cheese, I improvised and used an equal amount of butter and more powdered sugar, adding half and half until I reached the desired spreading consistency.
