Welcome Sunday at the FCCB Cafe

I found out about a week ago that the FCCB Cafe was meant to be open, and free, this coming Sunday, while the person who had been organizing cooks and servers was in the middle of a move to Palo Alto.

So I'm taking this thing OVER!

There's a huge difference, once again, between cooking in a kitchen for a-la-carte meals and cooking a bunch at once while organizing and directing a bunch of volunteers to make an open, welcoming cafe.

This is going to be fun, especially as... who will be showing up tomorrow morning but Becky, mum extraordinaire?! At least she's willing to help out (she's always up for community-building)!

So I'm going to go into the ideas behind the cafe in a later post (it is pretty much completely what I use as my life philosophy), but right now I'm focused on trying to assemble enough foodstuffs to feed a bunch of hungry people who will arrive on Sunday expecting a complete, free cafe (usually we charge enough to cover the cost of ingredients).

Usual fare at the cafe on a Sunday morning might be 1-2 types of muffins (36 total); a coffee cake (or two) of some sort; granola and organic yogurt; one type of scone or savory bun (about 20); and two large frittatas (serving about 24). This tends to sell out (it's not a huge ordeal on a normal week), so we've been able to keep it regular.

And yet, this week it will all be free, so naturally we'll get a bunch more people. So what to make?

So far, we have in the plans:
four large frittatas
two loaves of bread (for what I'm not quite sure, something about toast was thrown around, but I'm not sure how we could get that working)
some cupcakes(? I'm sure they'll go easily enough even at 8am)

On Sunday I'll be making strawberry cream scones (ergh not the best choice of berry, but it wasn't mine to make). They tend to be a hit, and when the ingredients consist of flour, sugar, baking powder, berries, and heavy cream, it can't really be any simpler to throw together in a massive batch. Looks like I'll need to get some more cream, though. One pint will make approximately twelve large scones.

And tonight I threw together a variation on my favorite, easiest-in-the-world-and-always-delicious lemon cake. It's the same recipe I made for my sister Kristen's wedding cake, and can work with any kind of citrus fruit (needed for the acid and the delightful flavor to complement the dense-ish texture). Tonight I found I didn't have any lemons, only limes... and a blood orange... so I went with an Orange and Montmorency cherry variation. I'll throw together an orange glaze on Sunday morning and serve it up in little slices (I made a triple recipe, so it should feed quite a few, though a triple recipe went into each layer of Kristen's cake...). Fortunately this cake gets better and better for the first few days after it's made (the gluten relaxes and the moisture in the cake condenses and settles), so by Sunday morning it should be pretty good.

Well, wish me luck! And if you have suggestions for other easy recipes to throw together on Sunday morning, please let me know...