He said that the tree has hundreds of lemons right now and they're big. I didn't believe him at that time, as from my understanding, meyer lemons are small, a little rounder that regular lemons and more orange than regular lemons, but more yellow than regular orange (does this sentence make sense?). But anyways, of course I wanted them, immediately! He said that he had to throw a lot of them away because they're just too many. For a slight moment there, my heart was aching when I heard that :(
So the next day, he showed up in my cube bringing a big plastic bag full of meyer lemons!!! The lemons were big, unlike the usual meyer lemons I saw.
My head was spinning, trying to think what wonderful desserts I can make with this.
It's been more than a week that I have abandoned those wonderful meyer lemons that my coworker gave me. It hurts everytime I opened the fridge and saw them waiting patiently for me to do something with them. My excuse is still the same, no time. I came home late and by the time I got home, all wanna do is just take a shower, eat, and sleep. I don't even think I have enough energy to do something else. Besides, the kitchen is always full of people at night, that I don't feel like juggling with space and everything to make a cake. I just don't like doing something in that kind of environment. I like it when the kitchen is empty, no dirty dishes in the sink, and lots of counterspace. Unfortunately, this rarely happens :(. But I should be thankful to be blessed enough to have a kitchen and all the necessary tools I need for baking :).
My coworker was certainly expecting something out of those lemons. A week had past, and not even one dessert I brought to work. So, I decided to just make something quick that we can all enjoy right out of the oven. Not those multi-component cakes, tarts, mousses. I settled down on lemon pound cake. I've never been a fan to a pound type cake, it's just not my cup of tea. But I baked lots and lots of lemon pound cake a few years ago. It seems like I was always excited to try a new lemon cake recipe. I can't count how many recipes I tried, not to mention lemon tarts, lemon meringue pie, and lemon bars. I was just that crazy with lemons. I just love the smell of fresh cut lemon in the kitchen. It's so refreshing and fresh, I just can't describe the feeling. It's been a while though that I didn't make lemony goodies anymore. I think I skipped last year's lemon season for some reason.
So anyways, I decided to try this lemon cake recipe by Lori Longbotham. I first read about it in tartlettte's blog. The way she described it, is just way too good that I had to try it myself. Besides, how can I resist something that starts with "the ultimate"? I didn't really read the recipe before I decided on this. I thought this is just a regular pound cake, with lots of butter, flour, eggs, etc. So, I prepared all of the ingredients on the night before and planned to bake it in the morning. When I started putting all of the ingredients together, I realized that the amount of butter is amazingly a lot, I also think the baking soda is too little for that amount of flour, but what do I know. I'll just follow the recipe to the tee.
So the next morning, I woke up earlier to bake this cake. When I was about to put it in the oven, I was super surprised when the recipe says that I need to bake it for 1.5 hours!!!!!! It's unusual to bake a pound cake at 300F for 1.5 hrs, but I followed anyway (and I was late for work that day :D).
Here's the recipe taken from tartlette's blog:
Ultimate Pound Cake, adapted from Lori Longbotham:
Serves 12 (in theory)
2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature
2 1/4 cups sugar
6 large eggs
1 cup milk
1 1/2 TB lemon zest
1 tsp. pure lemon extract
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
Preheat oven to 300F. Butter and flour a 12 cup Bundt pan.
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together twice.
Cream the butter and 1 3/4 cups sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Reduce the speed and add the flour mixture, alternating with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour. Stir in the lemon zest and lemon extract.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 1 1/2 hours, or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Poke holes all over the cake with a wooden skewer
Meanwhile, bring the lemon juice and remaining sugar to a boil over medium high heat in a small saucepan, stirring until the sugar is dissolved.
Invert the cake onto a rack, position over a baking sheet and slowly pour the syrup over the cake, it will seep through the holes and into the cake. Let cool to room temp.
1 comment:
"in theory" ;-))))))
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