Acornmageddon

I don't know if this is a mid-Atlantic-wide phenomenon this year or  has something to do with the variety of oak trees growing in my town, but the acorns are dropping like crazy.  My mom tells me when oaks drop tons of acorns it is called "masting."  The Internet tells me a mast year can mean five to ten times the normal amount of acorns and that acorn nuts are edible if you soak them long enough (hmmmm).  My husband tells me that three weekends in a row of sweeping, blowing, and raking buckets and buckets of acorns, only to have a million more drop the next day, is really annoying.  Well, you know the old saying, when life gives you acorns make acorn crafts!
 

Some of the acorns and caps collected from the yard

I turned to Martha's website, sure that after decades of crafts and likely a few mast years under her belt, Martha would have some great acorn crafts.  Alas, most of the crafts were to make things look like acorns that were not actually acorns.  Acorn marzipan?  No thanks.

She had an acorn cap mirror on her site, but I wasn't crazy about it,  Besides, I wanted to use whole acorns, not just the caps.

Photo credit: Martha Stewart

She also made these acorn napkin rings, but how often would I really use napkin rings.  Besides, I have millions of acorns, using 3 each for a few napkin rings didn't seem very satisfying.

Photo credit: Martha Stewart

 So, I abandoned Martha and just gave each nut a good wipe clean and hot glued the acorn caps back on the nuts. 

Then I put a candle in a glass hurricane and filled around the outside with my newly restored acorns.

 

Hot gluing the acorns and caps was surprisingly relaxing and the end product is really pretty.  One hundred down, several million to go.

-Jacqui

Hazelnut-Raspberry Jelly Roll

Martha had a yummy looking recipe last month for a jelly roll http://www.marthastewart.com/910479/hazelnut-raspberry-jelly-roll, which I have always wanted to make, but never had because, well, it looked hard.  But, I decided to give it a go.
 
First, I had to grind the hazelnuts (which I had previously toasted in the food processor) with the flour and salt.  I ground this mixture for a while, then sifted, and even after a second grining, a lot of nuts remained behind in the sifter.  I was worried that leaving out that much of the nut flour would affect the recipe, but it was fine. 

Leftover nut pieces - maybe a good ice cream topping?

The batter required whisking eggs, egg yolks, and sugar over a pan of simmering water.  This was almost a fiasco when the bowl I used was two small and nearly fell into the pot of water, but I managed a rescue. 

 

 
This conconction is then whisked in a mixer, then the flour nut mixture is folded in.  My resulting batter looked delicious.

  
My daughter agreed.

Think she liked it?

The batter is baked on a parchment-lined jelly roll pan for a mere eight minutes.  Martha has a good trick to get the cake to stay in a rolled form.  After baking, the parchment is peeled off and the cake is rolled up in a clean kitchen towel to cool. 

 

 

After the cake is completely cooled, I unrolled it, spead it with jam and a layer of whipped cream and rolled back up to chill for a few hours.

 

 

Looks delicious, right.  It was and it was easy too.  I'm already thinking of other things I can put in a jelly roll.  Nutella sounds good.  Or maybe bananas or peaches and whipped cream.  The possibilities are endless.

-Jacqui