It's Strawberry Season-Quick Strawberry Tart

The Strawberries are coming in faster then I can eat them. So I decided today, instead spending my morning in the back yard, I will bake my quick, Low-fat Strawberry Tart and share the recipe.


This is a very typical bottom for Fruit tarts in Germany. It is very easy to make, it is fast, low- fat and you can use it with almost any uncooked or canned fruit. It is best when you put the fruit on it short time before serving, because it is a spongy cake letting the fruit sit on it to long will result in the sponge being all wet from the fruit juices.

I like to spread some melted chocolate on the cake before I put in the strawberries or if I don't have enough time a chocolate spread like Nutella will do.
Or if I have more time I make a simple cream filling similar to Bavarian Creme.
This not only tastes good, but it keeps the fruit from soaking into the cake.



This is one of my kids favorite summer cake so I thought you might like it too.

So here is the recipe which I exported from my cookbook program

Fast Biscuit


Serving Size : 12 (German servings are smaller then in the US)

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
2 Eggs ( whole eggs)
1 Tblsp Water
75 g Sugar
2 Tblsp Vanilla sugar
100 g unbleached flour
1 TL Baking powder

1. Preheat oven to 350° F.
Grease Fruit tart baking form with Butter and
dust with Flour or bread crumbs.

2. Beat the whole Eggs, Water, Sugar and Vanilla sugar in
bowl until foamy. Should look like a thick creme.

3. Mix Flour and Baking powder, sieve onto the
Egg mass and fold under carefully

4. Bake on middle rack in Oven for 20-30 minutes,
until the cake is golden brown or
a testing pick comes out clean.
Don't open the oven door in the first 15 minutes,
because the dough will not rise properly then.

Nutrition (calculated from recipe ingredients)
----------------------------------------------
Calories: 246
Calories From Fat: 9
Total Fat: 1g
Cholesterol: 39.5mg
Sodium: 13.6mg
Potassium: 64.6mg
Carbohydrates: 58.7g
Fiber: <1g

disclaimer: Not to be shared with the Dervaes Family of Path to Freedom Website. Thank You

What is blooming in my garden in May

Even I have been a bit too busy working in my garden to post to my blog at least I took some time taking pictures of what is blooming in my garden. I will add the names of the plants later.
Enjoy my flowers

This was blooming in my garden in early May

















Blooms in Mid May



















Blooms in Late May

Seed tape update

I have been a bit to busy working in my garden to be posting. Spring and early summer is always my busiest time in the garden with weeding, pruning, planting new plants and getting things started. It should slow down somewhat soon, although I have a few projects I like to accomplish this year. I will tell about my garden projects in another post. Hopefully soon.

So I tried out the seed tape I bought online. I glued some seeds on with a cornstarch paste making sure I used a enough of the paste so they would stick to it. You are supposed to be able to just roll the whole thing up once the glue dries and then plant the seed tape when you want to plant it.
Well, let me tell you so far I am not impressed with the product, maybe I am doing something wrong but one should think you would get at least some vegetables out of the deal.
I started with carrot seeds, three different varieties, fresh seeds purchased this spring. I planted them right away after the glue was dry. I added some light dirt thinly on top of the seed tape and watered it. It would not stay moist, dried out faster then I could wet it. My whole vegetable garden is on automatic watering with drip irrigation, I even added some micro sprayers, thinking it needed more water then I was giving it. It still dried out to fast. I had my timer go off twice a day, total watering time was one hour but it didn't help. Nothing sprouted.
Then I set my timer to go off 4 times a day for 15 minutes at each cycle. Still nothing sprouted, it was a bit moister then before but still after about 1 1/2 months I only got a few carrot plants with my efforts.
We did have quite some hot days in May, but it wasn't that hot when I first put down the tape, they should have been sprouting.
Late May I tried the same with some Bulb Fennel seeds. Usually Fennel sprouts for me quite easy. I read something online that maybe the corn in the cornstarch might be responsible. So this time I used Elmers glue. I wanted to plant them next day, but then I didn't have time so I rolled the tape up and put it in my seed box to plant it out next chance I get.
By the time I put the seed tape in the garden, some of the seeds had fallen off. I somewhat suspected that would happen. I planted them at the proper depth for Fennel, kept it moist and even covered it with some lightweight garden fleece to keep the moisture in.
After 3 weeks I got about 6 Fennel seedlings that is from 48-56 planted seeds.
This time because the tape was a bit deeper in the ground it looked like it kept moist enough for the seeds to sprout. I don't understand why those seeds won't sprout. All my other vegetables started the old fashioned way have sprouted and are growing.
I even tried to grow Radishes with the tape, not one single seedling I got out of that, while the control group sprouted fine, grew and has been consumed already.
I used seed tape, which had seeds sandwiched between years ago, it was real thin tissue like paper which almost dissolved shortly after planting. Those seeds sprouted very quickly and easily.
Now I am thinking, could it be that the Chlorine in the paper is keeping the seeds from sprouting? The seed tape is made with white bleached paper, or could it be the printing ink?
Or is the problem that it is made with just thin paper instead of tissue paper?

This product if I would rate it from 1 to 10, I would give it a 1-. I won't use it again and I suggest to everyone to not bother ordering this product. Something should have been sprouting, at least the Radish should have.

I could could kick myself, because I first trusted this product so much that unfortunately I did not seed any carrots the conventional way and so now I am without the early carrots.

Oh well.