Juicy Post – When Life Gives You Lemons

Sacred Lemons And Limes

I have a confession, I keep trying to recreate the Amalfi coast on my deck in the summer and in my living room in the winter.  We visited Sorrento in January –  and there were lemon trees (and the occasional lime and orange trees) with lemons, thriving.  So naturally I thought, “I can do this. I can have them in pots just like all the citrus trees growing happily in vessels all over Sorrento.” So, I am proud to announce that  I have had some qualified success. 

Not the orange tree, alas. I lost the orange tree.  (It died a very slow and graceful death with two oranges still clinging to its branches…sort of a Tim Burton version.) This was replaced by a lime tree, which produced a few great daiquiris and a lime pudding cake before succumbing to a different death. It has now been replaced by Capital Roots with a much more stalwart version.  But the lemon tree has actually been chugging along and produces a handful of lemons every year.  We call these “The Sacred Lemons”  and “The Sacred Lime Or Two.” And we have nailed a few recipes that pay tribute to these precious few, zest and all. 

If you have not tried the  lemon ice cream (which you can make with either limes or lemons) from our inaugural post, put it on your To Make List.  It is embarrassingly easy and refreshing at any time of the year.  I align myself with  the owners of Berthillon in Paris – real ice cream lovers who eat it outside in the dead of winter 

Sacrificial Fruit For Your Meals

So, just to give you an idea of the difference between the lemons from the grocery store and the ones off the somewhat stingy tree (neither my Lemon nor my Lime Tree bears any resemblance to The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein), look to the picture at your immediate left.  Top are two lemons from two different grocery stores, and the bottom beauty is guess what? The aroma from the cut fruit of either my lemons or limes can almost be appreciated from another room.  I had the best daiquiri of my life from those limes (and I have had quite a few, first from my Dad and then from my husband, who inherited his recipe). 

You must know how much we revere the recipes from Maida Heatter at Kitchen Detail, and this Lemon Buttermilk cake from her original version of Maida Heatter”s Book Of Great Desserts is no exception.  This recipe apparently met with some resistance and was deleted from some subsequent reprints.  But I have discussed this cake with other lifelong home baking friends who have made this cake with no problem, and we all fail to see any reason for controversy. It’s such a delicious cake.  Tender, lemony, with great keeping power. And it uses buttermilk, which I always seem to have left over after making things like Southern biscuits.  You can make this in individual  loaf pans as well.  We recommend the stiff paper ones from Novacart or the nifty French ones from Panibois that are made from birchwood and can be put in the oven. 

Waste Not Want Not Muffins

I am not wild about most muffins as they are often too dry, and sometimes overstuffed with healthy ingredients.  These are different- they are meltingly tender, reheat easily, and aremade from a rough puree of whole lemon!  I took the image at left to give you an idea of what it looks like before the pulsed nuts get stirred in.  This recipe adapted from The Pastry Queen by Rebecca Rather was a favorite with our Teen Cuisinettes and Cuisiners, so make this with some kids hanging around in your kitchen. (As a non-lemon aside, Rather’s Tuxedo Cake and Jail House rolls are worth the price of admission) The muffin recipe also has the benefit of using up a lot of yogurt, which I have in the fridge because we try to eat yogurt and then fail – bacon and eggs, popovers, sticky buns always seem to call. I tried using free-standing paper muffin cups, but they never seem to work for me.  So I now bake these in a muffin pan.  The stiff mini-panettone ones from Novacart work beautifully as freestanding baking forms. 

A Double Decker

Lemon pudding cake is one of those crafty American recipes that you pour into a form after mixing, and it divides itself into a pudding layer at the base and a sort of sponge cake top.  You can make it in just about any ovenproof container you want. This works best with lemons or limes and not well with oranges.  When I use Meyer Lemons, I decrease the sugar (amount variation is in the recipe card).  I also have used almond flour instead of sugar to line the ramekins. I have seen this recipe used in some pretty fancy restaurants where the pastry chef substitutes an unusual citrus fruit or citrus combination.  It is  then unmolded and garnished with some kind of frou-frou for $12.00. If you simply put whipped cream on top of standard issue citrus and toss on a few berries, you can charge $12.00 too. 

Curiously Refreshing

Let’s face it, because it is January, we need a restorative cocktail while looking out the window.  And I think a slightly updated Sidecar fits the bill.  My mother-in-law was very chic (and she made many of her own stunning outfits, like the one pictured in this photo). Dorothy Remington Pollard knew a thing or two  about cocktails.  She whisked my husband into the Knife and Fork ( a very swish restaurant in DC in the 1950s) to celebrate his birthday and first legal cocktail – which was a Sidecar.  It is thought to have been invented after World War I, most likely in Paris,  and was indeed named after a soldier’s sidecar attachment on his motorcycle.  This one is adapted from an excellent book on making cocktails titled The Bar Book by Jeffrey Morganthaler.  Do include the orange peel garnish, as it takes the cocktail to another level.