Casting about in my mind's recipe file I considered what I might bake for a dessert treat today. Then I remembered Irving talking in the past about a yeast-raised buttercake his mother used to bake on occasion. I dimly recall it but took no interest of it those long years ago. In the past I've baked what I imagined to be versions of it, but I thought on an impulse that I'd look on the Internet. And I found an intriguing recipe there for a yeast-raised buttercake. I changed it slightly and gave it a try this morning.

It certainly doesn't look like much, but it smells good and it will be interesting this evening to see what it tastes like. It's almost like putting together a cake-in-a-cake, actually. The bottom portion forming the base is yeast-raised, the top portion more cake-like. Into the bottom portion went a half-cup butter, quarter cup granulated sugar, an egg, 1/2 cup warmed milk, yeast, vanilla, salt and two cups of flour. To form a batter which I kneaded and then set to rise.

The second portion was comprised of (good grief!) a cup of butter, two cups of sugar, two eggs, and 2/3 cup of flour. I reduced the amount of butter and sugar and left out the 1/4 cup milk, adding instead a half-cup ground almond, reducing the amount of flour accordingly but also adding a little baking powder. Then I rolled out the risen dough, patted it into a fairly large rectangular baking dish, let it rise for another half-hour then poured over the batter of the second portion and baked it in a pre-heated 350F oven for 30 minutes. Smells good. We'll see....

 There's cold days and really cold days. We're in a serious spate of cold for the next several days. We thought it was more than cold enough yesterday for us all at -10C, with a brisk wind and were well chilled despite dressing in warm layers when we went out for our daily hike through the woods. So we gave our foray into the ravine a pass today. Every time we took Jackie and Jillie out to the backyard today they ran amok as they often do in the snow, again once they got back up on the deck angling to get back indoors.

Mind, they did follow us about enquiringly enough. But we had decided we'd give the forest a pass today and that's that. Likely tomorrow as well, since the temperature won't rise above -14. Last night the temperature dipped to -24C, and that's pretty cold; the same expected for tonight.

Irving thought it as good a time as any, under lockdown and elderly social distancing to go about renewing his driver's license and vehicle registration plates online this afternoon. It's certainly far more complicated than going out to the motor vehicle registration bureau, but personal appearance is not now recommended for the elderly, and we're glad about that, and that the usual bi-annual 'tests' of the elderly to qualify for their licenses has been suspended, as well.

So it's been a quieter-than-normal day for us. Taking seriously for the first time in a long while, the 'stay-at-home' provincial instructions. Missing our hour-and-a-half out on the forest trails seems awfully strange. As though indeed, we're 'missing' something vital to the day. Jackie and Jillie don't seem to mind at all, they're entertaining themselves leaping at the front door and barking furiously at the impudent little squirrels that come along to take possession of the nuts and peanut-buttered bread squares. 

There is compensation for the extreme cold, with the bold, bright appearance in that big blue sky hosting the sun that shines through our windows, brightening the house and helping to warm it as well. Much appreciated. A comfort that belies the thick accumulation of snow resting like second-stories atop the two garden sheds in the backyard.