Garden to Table: Joe's 40th Anniversary Rosemary-Lemon Cake with Meyer Lemon Curd and Rosemary Buttercream Frosting

Basic Instructions:

1. Make Lemon Curd

2. Make Rosemary Infused Butter

3. Make Rosemary-Lemon Cake

4. Make Rosemary Buttercream Frosting

5. Assemble Cake

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Lemon Curd Ingredients:

• About 6 Meyer Lemons

• 2 Tbsp. lemon zest

• 2 C. sugar

• 4 eggs

• ½ C. butter

Directions:

1. Grate zest and squeeze lemons for 1 cup of lemon juice.

2. Beat butter and sugar on medium speed with and electric mixer or spoon until blended.

3. Add eggs one at a time beating until just blended after each addition; stir in zest and

transfer to a microwave safe bowl, heavy pot, or double boiler.

4. Microwave on high for 5 minutes, stirring at 1-minute intervals. Continue microwaving at 30

second intervals until mixture thickens, coats the back of a spoon, and starts to mound

when stirred. Or cook in your heavy pot/double boiler on medium low, whisking constantly

14-16 minutes until thickened and coats the back of a spoon.

5. Place plastic wrap directly on warm curd, to prevent a film from forming on top, and chill 4

hours or until firm. Will store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.

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Rosemary Infused Butter and Rosemary Buttercream Ingredients:

• 1 cup unsalted butter

• 3-4 sprigs fresh rosemary

• 3 ¼ cup powdered sugar, sifted

• ½ teaspoon sea salt

• 1 Tablespoon heavy cream

Directions:

1. Using a heavy bottomed saucepan, add butter and rosemary. Melt butter and bring to a boil for 1 minute. Remove from heat and allow to cool until butter is cool to the touch. Strain out rosemary. Infused butter can be stored in the fridge until ready to use.

2. Let butter soften to room temperature, if chilled. Using an electric mixer with a paddle attachment cream butter. Add powdered sugar, salt, and heavy cream. Mix until smooth. If buttercream is too soft add additional powdered sugar 1 Tbsp at a time. If it is too thick, add a little more heavy cream until desired consistency is achieved.

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Rosemary-Lemon Cake Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups (280 gr) cake flour, plus extra for dusting pans

• 1 1/4 tsp (5 gr) baking powder

• 1/4 tsp (2 gr) baking soda

• 3/4 tsp (3.6 gr) Morton kosher salt or table salt

• 1 3/4 cups (343 gr) granulated sugar (divided)

• 10 tablespoons (140 gr) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

• 1 cup (237 ml) buttermilk, room temperature

• 3 TBSP (44 ml) vegetable oil

• 2 tsp vanilla extract

• 1 TBSP lemon zest

• 1 TBSP fresh rosemary, minced

• 6 large egg yolks, room temperature

• 3 large egg whites, room temperature

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line a quarter sheet pan or two 8-9-inch round pans with parchment paper or a silpat, and grease lightly. If not using parchment or silpat grease pan and flour lightly.

2. In a large bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and 1 ½ cups sugar.

3. In another bowl or 4 cup measuring cup, whisk together the melted butter, buttermilk, oil, vanilla, lemon zest, rosemary, and egg yolks.

4. In the bowl of a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, beat egg whites at medium speed until foamy. With the machine running, stream in the remaining

¼ cup of sugar. Beat at high speed just until stiff peaks form. Transfer to a clean bowl.

5. Put flour mixture into the stand mixer with the whisk attachment. Turn on low speed and stream in butter mixture and mix for 10-15 seconds. Turn off mixer

and scrape the sides of the bowl. Mix again for 20 seconds until just combined.

6. Using a spatula, carefully fold in half of the meringue until just incorporated. Then fold in the rest of the meringue. There will be a few white streaks in the batter. Gently pour the batter into the quarter sheet pan or two 8-9-inch round pans.

7. Place on center rack of oven and bake at 350F for 20-25 minutes, rotating halfway through. The cake will pull away from the edge of the pan and will no

longer jiggle in the center when baking is complete.

8. Cool cake in the pan on a wire rack for 20 minutes. Turn over onto, a piece of parchment paper or silpat, on a wire rack and allow to cool completely before

frosting or assembly.

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Final Assembly

1. If using a quarter sheet pan you, you can either make the cake twice and then layer or cut in half and then use those as the layers. If using cake rounds

the recipe will produce 2 rounds.

2. Place one piece on your cake platter and lightly top with buttercream. Put about ½ cup of buttercream in a bag and pipe a border around the perimeter

of the cake.

3. Spread enough lemon curd on top to fill the buttercream perimeter.

4. Place the other cake on top and spread the remaining buttercream on top and on the sides. Chill cake for 20-30 minutes after to set buttercream. Let

cake sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before serving.

Wax Myrtle and Yellow-rumped Warblers Are Made for Each Other

By Jody Walthall

We can welcome winter migrating birds to our yards by planting American (native) trees and shrubs to create habitat. Birds need insects, berries and seeds, as well as cover, that native plants offer.

Cool autumn temperatures bring winter migrating birds to our area. The greater the percentage of native plants in your yard, the more birds will be able to thrive there. Research by nationally celebrated entomologist Doug Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home, has shown that 96% of land birds feed their young insects that rely on native plants for sustenance. Native plants are the base of the ecological food web. In addition, his research indicates that when a landscape dips below 80% native plants, the reproduction rate of birds begins to drop. Thus, we can all make a difference in our yards by increasing the percentage of native plants each year.

Insects are important for some birds year-round, but other birds depend on berries to make it through the winter. Florida’s state bird, the northern mockingbird, eats primarily insects in spring and summer. Late summer through winter its diet is heavy in berries from pokeweed, elderberry, arrowwood, bluestem palmetto, American beautyberry and hollies, among many others.

Wax myrtle grown as a small tree. Photo by Jody Walthall.

Wax myrtle is another native shrub, having berries ripening in October and November. Unlike the bright red berries of holly, wax myrtle berries are not real visible. The very small, hard berries are arranged in clusters along the stem and are covered in a thin gray waxy coating. Two small birds that breed in the boreal forests of Canada, the ruby-crowned kinglet and yellow-rumped warbler, relish wax myrtle berries here in winter and are closely affiliated with this shrub. The birds get nourishment from the berries; the wax myrtle shrub receives seed dispersal service via the digestive tract of the birds in return, delivered complete with fertilizer.

The yellow-rumped warbler used to be known as myrtle warbler because it is so fond of wax myrtle berries. On our neighborhood morning walks, we have been hearing the distinctive “chips” of yellow-rumped warblers coming from the thick wax myrtle bushes around McCord Pond. Wax myrtle berries are an important source of winter food for this warbler, as they are for the kinglet.

Speaking of kinglets, last Christmas season at Native Nurseries, our supply of wax myrtle berries for decorating wreaths was discovered by a ruby-crowned kinglet. This diminutive bird, in its constantly flitting manner, put on quite a show for staff and customers alike as it stole wax myrtle berries from wreaths and then discovered its reflection in a nearby silver gazing globe. For several days it could be seen flashing its normally hidden red feathers on its head at the “interloper” in the globe.

Gray catbirds and white-eyed vireos are also known to feed on wax myrtle berries. Apparently not all birds can digest the waxy coating. Another winter visitor that sometimes depends on wax myrtle berries, along with holly and other winter fruit, is the tree swallow. During much of the winter these birds can obtain enough insects, but during sharp cold spells when there are few insects to be found, they will descend in numbers for a feeding frenzy on wax myrtle and holly.

As a landscape plant in your yard, wax myrtle will be a fast-growing, large evergreen shrub. Sometimes it is used as a small, multiple trunk tree. It prefers full sun, but light dappled shade is fine. Wax myrtle does best when allowed to grow to its full size and natural shape. That said, it responds well to periodic pruning, especially on old growth. Only female plants will produce berries, but all wax myrtle will provide excellent cover for birds.

North Florida still has a fair amount of native forest of both pines and hardwoods. Tallahassee is one of the most forested cities in the country. Our urban forest consists primarily of native species, though we have problems with Chinese camphor, Chinese elm, Chinese tallow, mimosa, tree Ligustrum, and Taiwan cherry. You can improve your yard by removing these space-hogging invasive alien plants and replacing them with American native species. You will be doing the birds a favor!

Learn more about the importance of native species for wildlife when Dr. Doug Tallamy speaks in Tallahassee on March 19, 2020 (location to be announced). Dr. Tallamy’s presentation is titled, The Insect/Native Plant Connection: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants.

Act Locally to Support Birds and the Places they Live

In the last 50 years, more than 1 in 4 birds has disappeared across North America. The journal Science recently reported that wild bird populations in the continental U.S. and Canada have declined by almost 30% since 1970.

That is one year before I graduated from high school and about the time that I started using binoculars to watch birds. This is grim news indeed.

Though I have been a member of the Audubon Society for a long time, I recently became more involved by joining the board of our local organization, Apalachee Audubon Society.

Participating in a local Audubon Society chapter is a good place to start if one wants to do something on a local or regional level that positively impacts birds and the ecosystems in which they live. We also need to push our elected officials on broad policy, but by acting locally one feels a better sense of accomplishment.

For instance, we have an active Conservation Committee that has lobbied for funding for conservation easements of large land holdings along the ecologically important Apalachicola River and for outright purchases through Florida Forever of other large landholdings in the Panhandle. This same committee supports protection of springs and reviews plans of our Northwest Florida Water Management District.

Lake Elberta Wildflower Planting Workday. Photo by Harbria Gardner

Our chapter was recently recognized as Chapter of the Year at last month’s Florida Audubon Assembly in Gainesville. To attract a younger and more diverse population, our president Peter Kleinhenz successfully wrote three grant proposals over the last 2 years, two with National Audubon and one with Florida Power and Light.

These grants have enabled us to hire interns at both FSU and FAMU and to purchase native plants to revegetate the shoreline and uplands at Lake Elberta Park on Lake Bradford Road just south of Gaines Street. We have worked cooperatively with Tallahassee Parks and Recreation as well as the surrounding neighborhoods.

Last Sunday I volunteered at a planting event organized by our current two interns, Harbria Gardner from FAMU and Nelson Ball from FSU. I couldn’t have been more impressed by their planning and execution. Sixteen volunteers planted over 200 wildflowers in less than 3 hours. A job well done!

A bald eagle flew over the lake, 2 wood storks probed its edges and a small group of ruddy ducks swam by as we worked. Harbria and Nelson are planning more workdays and have already conducted an invasive plant removal event at the park.

Lake Elberta is just one of our habitat improvement and environmental education programs. A small team of volunteers formed a Bird Club that meets every other week with the afterschool program at Pineview Elementary School. We also support environmental education programs at St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge by providing funding for buses at Title 1 schools and provide Audubon Adventure kits for interested teachers.

We hold monthly program meetings that are informative and uplifting. Our next program on Nov. 21 is for pure enjoyment of birds – “Two Seasons Birding in Japan” with Bernie and Chris Grossman. We all know that Japan is an industrialized, first world country made up of several islands off the coast of Asia. Most of us don’t realize that these islands are quite mountainous and forested with the human population concentrated in a relatively small portion of the land. This makes for excellent birding.

Join accomplished photographer Bernie Grossman and his wife Chris to learn about the birds of Japan and their habitats in two different seasons. You do not have to be a member to attend an Audubon program.

If you find the news of declining bird populations daunting, get involved by attending one of our interesting programs, birding field trips, or volunteer with the interns at Lake Elberta. You will be most welcome.