Butchart Gardens January 16, 2011

Spring Prelude

The indoor garden at Butchart's opened on January 15th. It can't be too soon for me.

Spheres seem to be a theme this year. I like them.

Also, we see more rough wood/logs/bark being featured.

This year a new leaf fountain...

... joins the regular water features.

I don't know what this tree is but hope to find out. Update: other visitors figured it was a Mimosa.

And then there are the old standards, like the witch hazel in the bottom photo, which, for some reason, I am always happy to see.

It is often the lighting that makes this garden so interesting.

Government House January 13, 2011

Snowdrops are up! I could be wrong, but it seems a little earlier than in recent years.

Most of the gardens are rather dormant looking.

But I did find small pink blossoms on a tree!

January skies

January 1. The month began in grand fashion with this dramatic sunset.

January 9. A more subtle, pastel sunset makes me think of summer days ahead.

And later this big moon settled down behind the hills.

January 13. A quickly changing sky over the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

January 16. Rain, wind, rain, wind and rainbows.

Fun thing to do with a bunch of sunset pictures.

3 bundt cakes

Somewhere along the way in life I lost my bundt pan. This Christmas my sister got me a new one in a nice, smaller 6-cup size.

1. Chocolate crown cake

This recipe was on the pan's packaging. The trouble with baking is that I'm often grossed out by the ingredients - but maybe it's just the recipes I choose. A whopping cup of white sugar seems like a lot. So does half a cup of butter. I cut the sugar down by a quarter and wonder if I could have got away with half. This recipe also uses chocolate syrup.

I was pleased that my first effort came out of the pan intact.

Oh dear! My so-called drizzle icing was way too thick. Inside, the cake looks like a marble cake. The taste and texture were fine but it was still quite sweet.

I found the next two recipes on the internet.

2. Key lime cake

Not surprisingly, this cake contains lime juice and rind. If I didn't know, I would have thought it was lemon. This recipe was similar to the first, with the same amount of sugar and butter. Again I cut down the sugar.

Light and fluffy, this cake was my favourite of the three.

3. Chocolate & coffee cake

Just when I began to think that bundt recipes were similar, like muffin recipes usually are, along comes this one which was constructed quite differently. It was supposed to have instant espresso granules but I couldn't find any so used coffee instead.

This batter was runnier and the cake is shorter than the other two. There was nothing wrong with this cake, but my favourite part was the coffee flavoured icing.

I learned that drizzling icing is not as easy as I thought.

Butchart Gardens December 22, 2010

The time to visit Butchart's at this time of year is at night when the gardens come to life with thousands of lights and with Christmas carolers and such. But I wasn't there at night.

I didn't take pictures of the usual decorations and there isn't much colour or growth in December.

Christmas cookies

It's funny how you can be inspired to do something you had no intention of doing. Such was the case when I saw the Christmas cookies made by a friend's sister - I'll call her 'M' - and before long I was baking simple sugar cookies.

The brown edges aren't as noticeable once the cookies are decorated.

These cookies were to go to a seniors' gathering that evening and since I was behind time, I was most grateful that M let me use her designs. I marvelled at the perfect little dots on her cookies. How did she do that? So I was pretty pleased when my dots turned out looking like tiny green peas on my tree cookies. The runny green icing was more unruly for drawing lines, however. Maybe it mattered that I just mixed icing sugar with skim milk instead of making royal icing.

Who would have thought of turning circular cookies into snowflakes? I wouldn't have. This is a copy of M's design and layout except that her snowflake patterns are perfectly symmetrical and her cookies were more tidily arranged. But I was in a mad rush at this point.

The designs for the little people were taken from an internet picture. They were supposed to have faces but I couldn't manage that sort of detail. A hunt for new decorating tips is probably in my future.

I had planned to do some decorating with chocolate on the shortbread cookies scattered around the outside of the platter and arrange everything nicer, but if I didn't hurry, my cookies would have shown up when everyone had gone home! Slap, slap, slap, down went the cookies, a big sheet of Christmas-design cellophane was wrapped overtop, and whoosh out the door it went.

Regardless of the imperfections, I think it looked quite festive. And actually, it was fun.

Diorama #2

Glenn continued with the dismantling of his N-scale model train layout and was able to make a second diorama from it. (The first was shown on this post.)

I liked this one for its river, small waterfall and lake.

We probably could have done a better job of this shot but were rushed for time.

All buildings were equipped with lights.

And so this part of the original layout...

... was pared down to this portable unit which fit easily in the trunk of the car and was transported to its new home in a store window.

Gingerbread... houses?

Laurel Point Inn in Victoria has a display of gingerbread houses made by local chefs. As with the decorated Christmas trees in the Empress Hotel, people can vote for their favourite and donate to a charity.

A closer view of Emily Carr House. This is quite a good rendition.

This picture taken from the internet shows the real Emily Carr house.

Craigdarroch Castle perhaps.

People certainly are creative!

I like the windows in this house.

This Arizona style display is my favourite of all.

The back of this Harrods is open to show some of the floors. There is even one with grand pianos, which I think I remember seeing in the real store.

A library inside a tree trunk?

Victoria's 'blue bridge' has been the subject of much controversy in town. After months of debate it will be replaced with a new structure.