sweet potato bundt cake, or why logging is a good thing

There is this one sweet potato that I have lugged back and forth from my home to weekday cabin, to my home, to my cabin, to my home, to my cabin, and back to my home. Last week, my track record with said sweet potato being somewhat poor, I gave up, and left it at home. It was still kickin’ when I checked it out yesterday morning, and so off it went into to the glorified (yet lengthily-named) bundt cake that you see here.

If I have sweet treats during the week, they are ones that I make over the weekend, to portion out betwixt myself and my boyfriend. I don’t yet have any baking supplies at my enchanted forestland abode, as I’ve affectionately taken to calling it. But what I lack in material goods I more than make up for in fresh air, ability to break showshoes (two separate pairs, down!), and wildlife sightings.

After a 7″ snowfall this week, I followed a fisher‘s tracks down a mile or two of untraveled road, only to find the fisher itself gnawing on something nasty along the edge of the woods. Hearing my vehicle, he glided away in a whimsical sliding shimmy.

Aside from checking off animals on my life list, I do quite a bit of real ‘work,’ I promise you. I also promised to tell you more about what that work is, and judging from recent comments, ideas on what it is that foresters do vary a great deal.

When people hear that I am in forestry, they often think that I do one of three things: 1) I sit in a fire tower and watch for fires, 2) I am a logger and I cut down trees, or 3) I am a park ranger and I lead nature walks, check on campers, etc. Not to get too specific, but a) I have been in several fire towers, and they are all suffering from disabuse as I don’t think anyone has regularly sat in them on fire patrol for decades, b) if I were a logger, I would call myself a Logger, and c) if I were a park ranger, I would call myself a Park Ranger.

I was sincerely hoping that some of you would assume these tasks to be part of my daily routine, so that I could help to debunk this myth. Forestry is, I believe, a forgotten and much-maligned profession by the public, which is something that I strive to change as I move forward with my career.

So what is it that I do? I manage areas of forestland. I forest the forest, if you will. I walk these lands, focusing primarily on the trees, and check to see how they are growing, if they are healthy, and think about ways I can increase their productivity. How can we increase the growth of these trees? is something I get to ask myself every day. This is where loggers come into play. While I myself am not a logger, I work with loggers on a regular basis to manage the landscape around me. I prepare prescriptions, just like a doctor would, to treat areas of forestland that are sick, or that are in need of assistance, or that are mature and ready for ‘treatment,’ if you will.

I am incredibly lucky because in my corner of the globe, whenever we cut trees, other trees quickly grow back to take their place. This is not the case in many parts of the world. Those places require extra thought and assistance, and trees often have to be planted. But where I live, planting is not a necessity.

My sole hope is to convince those of you with environmental inclinations that logging is not evil. It has become very hip, very conscientious, to be an ‘environmentalist,’ whatever your definition of that may be. All the companies you make regular payments to have probably pleaded you to go paperless, in order to save the trees. What they really mean is to save them the money of sending you a paper copy.

These pictures are from the first harvest that I have been looking after over the past six weeks. The harvest is in a managed deer yard, meaning that there are special stipulations in place with the state to make the harvest more conducive to increased deer populations – which are relatively low in our area.

As a forester, I consider myself to be at the forefront of environmentalism. If there were no foresters in the world, it might be a good idea to save those trees. But we are here to make sure that trees don’t just disappear from our landscape when they are cut down. We are here to make sure that there are strong and healthy trees long into the future. And we are here to say, please keep using paper, especially if it is made in your country, in your region, perhaps even in your state. In this digital age, paper demand has weaned significantly. And the forest industry has suffered. I am okay with this – – I think we need to find ways of adapting, we need to find new technologies and new uses for our products.

You use paper every day. You are surrounded by wood and wooden products. Perhaps you already embrace the idea of sustainable timber harvesting. I really hope that you do, to see the benefits that it brings to humanity, to the economy, and to the forest. But if you don’t, if you have qualms of any kind, I would love to hear about them, and I would love to assuage them if possible… with science.

And if I can’t assuage you with science, let me do so… with cake!

Sweet Potato + Orange Pineapple Bundt Cake with Hazelnuts and Pecans

{original recipe, inspiration from here}

++Ingredients:++

5 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter, plus more for bundt pan
1 1/2 c. packed brown sugar
2 jumbo eggs (3 small)
1 sweet potato, diced and cooked well
1 tbsp (homemade) almond extract, or 1 tsp store-bought
2 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp baking powder
2/3 c. buttermilk
1/3 c. orange pineapple juice
1/4 c. hazelnuts, chopped
1/4 c. pecans, chopped

1/3 c. powdered sugar
A few dashes of orange pineapple juice

++Directions:++

Generously butter a 10-cup or 12-cup bundt pan. Set aside. Preheat oven to 330 F.

Beat butter and brown sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer (with the paddle attachment), or by hand. Add eggs, sweet potato, and almond extract, and beat until well-mixed. Add flour, salt, baking powder, and beat; then add buttermilk and orange pineapple juice, and mix well.

Pour 1/3rd of the mixture into the prepared bundt pan. Evenly sprinkle nuts into the pan. Pour in the remaining batter. Bake for 55-70 minutes, until cooked through. Remove from the oven, and allow to cool in the pan for 10 to 15 minutes. De-tin the cake.

Make a glaze out of the powdered sugar and a small amount of orange pineapple juice. Drizzle over the top of the cake. Serve!