A Review: The Art of Gracie: Hand Painted Wallpaper Timeless Rooms & Martha Washington's Great Cake

Video Description

A glorious celebration of America’s most storied handpainted wallpaper company, family owned for 125 years, featuring dozens of rooms by today’s top interior designers. The story of Gracie wallpaper, founded in 1898 and still family owned by the sixth generation, is one of the great untold stories of American interior design. Best known for their exquisitely detailed designs, Gracie papers have been installed at the White House and many of America’s most notable homes. They are a go-to resource for interior designers including Mark Sikes, Summer Thornton, Ellie Cullman, Brooke Giannetti, Suzanne Kasler, Michael S. Smith, Alexa Hampton, Alex Papachristidis, and Amanda Lindroth, and Gracie can be found in the homes of celebrities including Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, and Cameron Diaz. This volume, featuring hundreds of color photographs of contemporary rooms by leading interior designers, shows the range not only of the papers themselves—from beautiful florals and birds to panoramic landscapes of American folk scenes and French pastoral hillsides to hunting and maritime scenes—but also the imaginative ways they can be used to create truly transporting spaces. Designs in every imaginable color, from metallics to lush greens and cobalt blues to dramatic reds and blacks, show that with Gracie, any room in the home can become a true, custom work of art. Exquisite production detail on this volume, including 4-color printed page edges and a cover design custom-painted by Gracie exclusively for the book, will make this a must-have gift item that every interior design fan will want to display. Martha Washington's Great White Cake Ingredients 1 1/2 cups currants or assorted fruits ¼ cup chopped candied lemon peel 1 cup Madeira 3 cups all-purpose flour, sifted 1/2 cup chopped nuts ( I used pecans, macadamia and walnuts) 1/2 teaspoons ground nutmeg 1/2 teaspoons ground mace 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened 1 1/2 cups sugar 3 large eggs, separated Sugar Icing (recipe follows) (optional) 3 large egg whites at room temperature 1 1/2 cups sugar 2 tablespoons rose water or orange-flower water Directions Combine the currants, orange and lemon peels, and citron in a large bowl. Add 1/2 cup of the Madeira, and stir to combine. Cover with plastic wrap, and set aside for at least 3 hours, or as long as overnight. Stir the remainder of the Madeira together with the brandy, cover, and set aside. When ready to bake the cake, preheat the oven to 325°F. Grease and flour a 10-inch tube pan. Drain the fruits in a large strainer set over a bowl, stirring occasionally to extract as much of the Madeira as possible. Add the strained Madeira to the set-aside Madeira and brandy. Combine 1/4 cup of the flour with the fruit, and mix well. Add the almonds, and set aside. Sift the remaining flour with the nutmeg and mace. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter until it is light. Add the sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, beating for several minutes after adding each ingredient. Whisk the egg yolks until they are light and smooth, and add them to the butter and sugar. Continue to beat for several minutes, until the mixture is light and fluffy. Alternately add the spiced flour, 1/2 cup at a time, and the Madeira and brandy, beating until smooth. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites to form stiff peaks. By hand, gently fold them into the batter, combining lightly until well blended. By hand, fold in the fruit in thirds, mixing until well combined. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the top with an offset spatula or the back of a spoon. Bake for about 1 1/2 hours, or until a wooden skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Set the cake on a wire rack to cool in the pan for 20 minutes. If serving the cake plain, turn it out of the pan to cool completely. If finishing it with icing, turn the warm cake out of the pan onto a baking sheet, and proceed with the icing. To ice the cake, spread Sugar Icing generously onto the surface, piling it high and swirling it around the top and sides. Set in the turned-off warm oven and let sit for at least 3 hours, or until the cake is cool and the icing has hardened. The icing will crumble when the cake is sliced. Directions for Sugar Icing In the bowl of an electric mixer, start beating the egg whites on low speed, gradually adding 2 tablespoons of the sugar. After about 3 minutes, or when they just begin to form soft peaks, increase the speed to high and continue adding the sugar, 2 tablespoons at a time, beating until all the sugar is incorporated and the egg whites form soft peaks. Add the rose water, and continue beating to form stiff peaks. Use immediately to ice the cake.