We’re so excited to share a catch up we had with Robyn King earlier this month. Robyn is a full time stay-at-home parent, and mom to two adorable boys—Hunter, almost 5, and Reed, 2—who, for the past two years has been working during her boys’ nap times, late at night, and early in the morning (she and her husband Mike share just eight hours of childcare per week) to launch her own collection of women’s wear—Robyn King. And cue the bells: Her second collection launched yesterday!
Here, she lays bare the ins and outs of starting and running her own business, the unique challenges around starting a fashion line, and how she fits it all in. And at the end of the day we’re asking her, ‘What Keeps You Up At Night?’
How did you make this happen?
With young kids, everything is hard.
When we had our second son, Reed, two years ago, the political climate in the U.S. was intense. I realized, here I am raising two boys, who will be grown men someday, and I want to give them an example of what women can do. I love being their full-time caregiver—I always wanted that, and I still want that—but I want them to reflect back on their childhood and be able to say, “My mom loved us and took care of us, and she also did something she loved.” Even if it doesn’t turn out to be something big, I want them to have the example of a mother who chased her dreams.
I hadn’t stopped thinking about this gorgeous citrus cake since Kara Blake Chin shared it a few weeks ago, so I wrote to her to see if she would share the recipe—and she graciously agreed! It comes in perfect time for the first day of April—and would make a beautiful addition to an Easter brunch…
I have to admit that the initial motivation for making this cake was a need to use up some lemon icing that I had too much of, but I still enjoyed the end result!
A few weeks ago, I felt inspired to do some weeknight baking when I found myself with too many lemons from a friend and some blueberries that kept attacking me by falling out of the freezer. I was making this Lemon Yogurt Cake with Blueberry Compote, and when it went in the oven I realized I had completely forgotten to add the lemons that I had just spent ten minutes zesting and juicing. It was definitely too late to add them into the batter, so I decided to make a lemon icing to drizzle on top. Little did I know, but it takes a LOT of powdered sugar to make lemon icing from ⅓ cup of lemon juice, so I had a ton left over and had to find something new to make with it.
The inspiration for this cake comes from one that I photographed and tasted at work. I loved the light sponginess when I tasted that cake last spring, and I would never say no to lemon curd. In exchange for the mascarpone frosting, I added the aforementioned lemon icing and candied some kumquats and a variety of other citrus peels for decoration. The result was a very light cake, full of tart curd and covered with lemony icing.
So to celebrate it being spring, and with citrus season coming to a close, here is a cake in which you can use any type of citrus you desire to create different citrus flavor profiles. I was partial to lemon and Cara Cara oranges but you could certainly make it all with limes or blood oranges or sour orange or… it’s up to you and what you have on hand!
Some part of this ceviche is the fish I’d personally just pulled out of the sea, minutes earlier, off the coast of Mexico!
We are off on our spring break family trip to the Yucatan–thank you for your suggestions–and will be back to resume the usual posting next week!
Are any of you headed anywhere fun for a spring break this year? I’d love to hear where others are traveling! (We actually stayed next to a woman who mentioned she reads the blog, at our last hotel!)
