Snowy March

I don't normally approve of too much chat about the weather, but we have had snow every week this month and it's getting a bit ridiculous. However, it is rather pretty, so here are a few garden shots.
In the few days of lovely sunshine a couple of weeks ago, I went mad online and ordered a load of vegetable seeds and fruit canes to start our edible garden off in earnest. Suffice to say, everything's still in its packaging waiting for Spring.

Marmalade Cake

Of course I ended up making the aforementioned marmalade cake. It would have been rude not to, especially as we had friends coming over. In retrospect, after I'd used nearly a full 'gift' jar on the cake, I wished I'd just used some shop bought. In fact, the perfect one would have been the Bon Mamon Tangerine marmalade, as that has tiny pieces. Mine created large lumps in the cake, breaking up the flow of the sponge and mascarpone buttercream filling/icing. However, when I opened our half finished jar of tangerine marmalade a few days later, it smelt alcoholic, so it was probably safer that I hadn't thought of that at the time. With orange juice poured over the warm sponge before icing and zest grated over the finished article, the cake had the perfect zingy sweet balance, and looked lovely.

The only annoyance was 5 days later when I opened the tin in the pantry, and the remaining quarter cake had turned a musty shade of blue. I knew I should have been on a minimum of 2 pieces a day. Oh how I cried over my abstention.