Beautifying My Home & Baking A SCRUMPTIOUS Orange Bundt Cake!

[Music] hello everyone I am so glad to see you again well I have a blissful list of domestic chores that I want to tackle today let's see I need to clean out the fireplaces and restore or at least attempt to restore the top of one of my 19th century tables I want to purchase some baking supplies from a menite general store and I want to bake an orange pound cake if the cake turns out as wonderful as I think it will then we can enjoy a slice with afternoon tea so please hang out with me and we will see what we can accomplish today as you can imagine the fireplaces in this 200-year-old house are extremely efficient the shallow fire box permits abundant radient heat cleaning the Firebox is a simple job I use a dust pan to scoop up the ash which I then deposit into a metal [Music] pale if you have a fireplace and you only burn wood and maybe newspaper for kindling just as I do then you can use the resulting Ash as a soil amendment in the garden wood ashes are rich in potach the very substance that rais raises the pH of soil and therefore sweetens it sweet soil is the desire of lilacs and many other plants after we finish scooping the ash from these fireplaces we will pour it beneath the lilacs in my garden today is an exceptionally warm winter day most of the snow has melted let let's head up to the serpentine Garden where a hungry hedge of dwarf lilocks awaits [Music] us I am pouring the wood ash on the soil beneath the lilocks rain and snow will eventually water the potach into the soil now we can tackle the table that I mentioned earlier the table resides in The [Music] Parlor [Music] it's a spider leg table that we purchased at auction many years ago the table was built in the late 18th or early 19th century the top has a water stain that I hope to remove today without damaging the existing [Music] finish since the weather is warm we can bring the table to the front porch [Music] first I dust the entire your table with a microfiber cloth the white Mark you can see on the unders side of the table is the remains of a sticker that was placed there by the auction house I think we can remove it today I am using mineral spirits and super fine steel wool to deeply clean the table and always rubbing in the direction of the grain super fine steel wool is only slightly abrasive it is flexible enough to reach into the decorative grooves on the table mineral spirits will remove dirt and wax but it will not dissolve the existing shellac [Music] finish [Music] to my shock and Delight I was able to rub out the water stain with only minimal [Music] effort I'm going to grab a cup of coffee while I let this table dry for about 5 minutes now that the mineral spirits have dried I use a t cloth to remove any Dusty residue a tat cloth is a sticky cloth that you can buy at any hardware store then I apply mineral oil to the table and rub it in with a fresh pad of fine steel wool mineral oil is inexpensive it nourishes thirsty antique wood and lends a pleasant degree of Sheen [Music] I'm going to let the mineral oil soak into the tabletop for a good hour then I will come back and buff the table meantime let's make a run to the menite general store I need to restock some of my baking [Music] supplies the general store is located 13 Mi north of my place I enjoy shopping there and the drive involves no traffic whatsoever I am so glad that you and I can share this ride together wish I could stay in moment forever so I can hold you in my arm I will carry you on my [Music] shoulders [Music] [Music] the General Store is a gold mine for Bakers it carries everything from Candy to flour it is a shame that I am not in the market for candy today the general store sells it in bulk [Music] we are home and what a fun shopping trip that was I got a 50 lb bag of allpurpose flour and of course some other things including Amish butter and my beloved potato flakes and some baking powder and some other things I'm going to put these away and then I want us to go out and hit that table we need to buff it [Music] it my friends I am absolutely amazed at how well this table turned out for only a small amount of effort and at only minimal expense I was able to restore the table to its former glory now I am using a soft cloth to vigorously buff the table to a brilliant [Music] shine a fresh apron and it is time to make the orange bunt cake and the first thing I need to do is grease and flour my bunt pan this is baking spray it contains flour set this aside this recipe comes from King Arthur so I need three cups or 360 G of all purpose flour I'm weighing this flour out this away to the flour I'm adding 1 tblspoon of the baking powder that you and I just purchased at the General Store I know this baking powder is very fresh then I need a half teaspoon of table salt and just whisk to combine the dry ingredients so I am following the King Arthur recipe exactly and we can set this aside now they say to add 16 tablespoons or 227 G of room temperature butter to the bowl of a stand mixer along with 2 cups or 397 G of regular granulated [Music] sugar then we have to cream the butter and sugar together until the mixture turns light and fluffy and this butter is at room [Music] [Music] temperature and if I did not mention it before my oven is preheating to 350° F or 1008 80° C this looks light and fluffy so now we need to beat in five large eggs one at a time these eggs are at room temperature eggs are what makes this cake a pound cake now we need to beat in the flour mixture alternating with 3/4 cup or 170 G of orange [Music] juice I'm also beating in the zest from one large orange this smells incredible it's really amazing what a little orange juice and orange zest will do now I have to give the batter a good scraping with a spatula to make sure any stray bits of flour are Incorporated now we can transfer this luminous batter to the bunt pan we are going to bake this in the preheated oven until a skewer certed into the center comes out clean it's going to take 50 to 60 [Music] minutes while the cake is baking I'm going going to clean up my workstation then I'm going to go into the music room to practice piano I'm relearning chopan bad in G minor but I will not make you listen to [Music] that this cake has a wonderful Citrus perfume I will let it cool in the pan for 10 minutes then we can en mold it meantime I want to make the bourbon glaze that gets brushed on the cake the glaze ingredients are 4 tablespoon or 57 G of melted butter 1 cup or 113 G of confectioner sugar and 2 tbspoon or 28 G of bourbon the recipe says to combine all of the the glaze ingredients in a heatproof bowl microwave on high for 20 second intervals stirring until fully combined it's time to unmold the cake wish me luck it's stuck a little bit but I don't mind now we can brush the glaze over the cake I used more confectioner sugar than the recipe called for so my glaze was too thick to brush consequently I simply poured it over the cake this made a bit of a mess but I don't care the cake and the glaze are equally scrumptious I'm going to ditch this apron and change it into something a little more suitable for this cake then we can Brew some tea and enjoy our slices in The Music Room Citrus orange tea from Tiara Farm to the music [Music] [Music] room [Music] a sip of tea delicious and now the cake it's a pound cake but it has a definite moist crumb it's very citrusy from the orange juice and the orange zest and the bourbon glaze is something else let me tell you it's really delicious I will post the link to this King Arthur recipe in the description below in case you'd like to try it thank you for spending time with me today while we cleaned the fireplaces we restored a 19th century table we shopped for baking Goods at the General Store and we made this glorious orange pound cake I can put a couple of my other videos up here or up here that you can enjoy between now and my next upload until then please treat yourself well and I will see you in the next episode bye for [Music] now