(No) More Strawberries My Deer?

The strawberry lady at Chatham Mills Farmers Market said fresh strawberries should last a couple more weeks. I hope to get a few berries this year! I am using strawberry plants for a ground cover in-between daylilies in the flower bed next to the deck. 

I keep shooing deer away from new plants I just planted. Three times in the last few days! The deer like day-lilies - I hope they don't have an affection for strawberry plants too! Ha. If so I may be needing a recipe for Bambi stew!! (Just kidding - promise!) They wait until the daylilies are budding then nip their little heads off! Hmmm!! Maybe I need to spray the bed with 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper and an egg white mixed with a quart of water and 2-3 drops of dish soap. That works great to discourage Bambi - and all her voracious cousins! (Reapply after it rains!)

So. I promise after this post to take a vacation from sharing deadly dessert recipes... for a few weeks anyway! My Aunt Helen makes this. And it is to die for!! It is even better the next day. (If any survives!) Something happens to the texture -- pound cake magic. 

No - you are reading it right - the recipe does not call for any baking soda or powder. The carbonation of the 7-Up is it - so when the recipe says "stirring until just combined" it really means: fold and turn the bowl about three times and call it done. Save those bubbles!

7-Up Pound Cake

2 sticks butter
1/2 cup shortening
3 cups sugar
5 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups cake flour, measured before sifting
8 ounces of 7-Up

Preheat oven to 300. Grease and flour 10 inch tube pan. Mix butter, shortening and sugar until creamy as icing. Add eggs one at a time, beating 1 minute after each. Add vanilla and lemon extracts. Stir in flour until moistened, then beat 3 minutes. Add 7-Up last, stirring just until combined. Bake at 300, 1 1/2 hours or until cake tests done. Cool in pan on a rack for 30 minutes before placing on cake plate and glazing. 

Lemon glaze

1 cup powdered sugar
juice from 1 lemon

Sift sugar into mixing bowl and stir in lemon juice until smooth. Glaze cake when you remove it from the pan.

My Calendar 

My calendar for June is coming soon!! I'm sure most of you've heard by now - I am taking the next week off. I have even canceled being at Pittsboro Toys on First Sunday in Pittsboro, and another standing gig, Eno River Farmers Market on the first Saturday of the month. (I am very bummed.) I have had bronchitis. I am over being sick but can't talk without going into coughing fits. Several neighbors have had it with the same symptoms. So. Whether I like it or not I have to chill. I'll be back on the circuit June 3 - June 22. On June 23 I leave for vacation with the family. Oh life - how fun you are!! 

Y'all have a good week!! I need to go get out that bag of Ricola cough drops I just put away! Much love! c. 

Man taking balloons to a birthday party at S&T's Soda Shoppe in downtown Pittsboro.
Chatham County Courthouse's new copper roof glowing in the background after a rain shower.