Pruning in the cold is hard work, but we take coffee breaks and eat something delicious. Here's the recipe for this weeks break:

APPLE- MAPLE PUDDING CAKE with

Manoff Market Gardens Cider

2 cup all-purpose flour

3 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

3 tbsp butter, room temperature

½ cup sugar

2 eggs

2/3 cup milk.

3 cups Granny Smith
 and/or Gold Rush apple slices mixed with:

          1 tbsp sugar

          1 tsp cinnamon

          1 tsp ground ginger

          1/2 tsp chopped candied ginger 
or more if you like ginger!

               

Syrup:

1 cup Manoff Market Gardens Apple cider

1 cup Real Maple Syrup

Heat oven to 350°.

For Batter:
 In a small bowl combine flour, 
bkg pwder and salt.

In a medium bowl, cream butter 
and 1/2 cup sugar.
 Beat in eggs.

Stir  in flour mixture, a third at a time 
alternating with milk.

In an ungreased 9x13 pan- 
put apples(mixed with 1 tbsp. sugar and spices)Pour  batter over apple mixture making 

sure  all apple pieces are covered.

Combine Syrup and Cider in a saucepan 
over high heat and bring to a boil, stirring often.
 (Couple minutes)

Pour over batter; it will sink.

(ignore how it looks at this time-
it's not pretty!)

Bake 35-45 minutes 
or until toothpick inserted into

the center of the cake (not liquid) 
comes out clean.

Delicious over vanilla ice cream 
or for coffee break.

Picking up Maple Syrup!

Well, with all the rain I couldn't do much planting anyway... so off to Vermont I went with Clara.

We drove to Brattleboro on Monday and on Tuesday headed off to Albany, Vt.(not quite to Canada) Sonya met us when we arrived and along with her boys helped us load all the maple syrup into the van. I got to see the Sugaring Shack and the Sugar Bush. What a beautiful place! Now we have enough syrup for the season. Last year we sold out, so we are starting out with a little extra this year. Luckily, Kittredge's had a good year for making syrup. This is a picture from along the road.