TWD: Breakfast in Rome Lemon Cake

it has been a very long time since I had breakfast in Rome. Maybe I’ll do it again sometime. But until then I can enjoy this cake from Dorie Greenspan. It is a luscious lemon sponge cake. Very light, very tasty, and very enjoyable.

I added blueberries to mine, but as you can see, they all sank to the bottom of the cake. It doesn’t matter. It was still delicious. I took it to church, and there was only one piece left and everybody said that they enjoyed it. That’s enough for me. I had a half a slice and I thought it was delicious.

This is a sponge cake so you have to whip the egg whites until stiff and then fold them into a very thick cake batter. While it takes time to do all of this, it is well worth the trouble. You should try this one.

The recipe is on page 76 of Dorie Greenspan’s Baking with Dorie: sweet, salty, and simple.
See what the other Bakers made this week at Tuesdays with Dorie

 

WWDH: LEMON

The beginning of a whole new year. And I find myself asking what happened to the last one. It seemed to have passed so quickly. But, that seems to be the way it is as one grows older. Quick!

But the new year does mean a new beginning and mine is to get back to healthy eating. KETO to be exact. Donna Hay’s classsic baked lemon cheesecake was adaptable to KETO with very little problem.

B has been asking for something sweet. He loves lemon and I love cheesecake. Perfect.

Just a hint of lemon flavor. There is lemon zest in the filling and I increased it.

The adapting I did was in the base or crust. I used a cheesecake crust that I use for all my cheesecakes now.

•  2 cups Wholesome Yum Blanched Almond Flour
•  1/3 cup Butter (measured solid, then melted)
•  3 tbsp Besti Erythritol (granular or powdered works fine)
•  1 tsp Vanilla extract

Mix these ingredients will and press into a 9″ springform pan.

The filling is all Donna Hay – except for the sugar. By replacing the sugar with erythritol I made this KETO friendly.

1 1/4 lb cream cheese

3/4 cup sour cream

6 eggs

1 Tbl grated lemon zest. I used 1 1/2 TBL

1 cup sugar erythritol (and I added a tad more)

In a food processor mix together the cream cheese, sour cream, and erythritol. Mix until smooth. Add in the eggs and lemon zest and blend until well combined. Pour the filling into the crust. Bake for 1 hour at 275. Allow to cool before serving.

It took longer than 1 hour to bake. About 75 minutes total.

It had a delightful mild lemon flavor. I might add more zest and maybe a little lemon extract next time.

The original recipe is in Donna’s flavours cookbook (page 50)

More Wednesdays with Donna Hay.

Peggy

Kayte

Gaye

Kayte’s page has links to all of our WWDH posts.

 

{WWDH} A Taste of Citrus

Nothing brings sunshine to a day like citrus.  A round juicy orange.  A tangy green lime.  A small yellow lemon all bring a taste of spring with them.

Trying to find a recipe that isn’t heavy and brings a thought of spring is not easy.  Donna Hay has TONS of lemon dishes to choose from.  I ended up making Donna’s

LEMON AND COCONUT IMPOSSIBLE PIE

This is a super easy pie to make.  I don’t know why it’s called impossible.  All the ingredients are placed in a blender and then poured into a pie plate.  I just wish we had liked it.  Oh, well.  

The recipe is from Donna’s Website -> Lemon Pie

More Citrus -> A Taste of Critrus

 

{IHCC} LEMONS!!

This is not at all what I had planned to make for this week’s IHCC ingredient – LEMONS!.  The weather was rather chilly when I picked out a nice lemon risotto and then the weather turned warm – mid 70s this week (and keep in mind it is mid-January) – so I switched to a nice citrus-y cake.

Lemon Yogurt Cake

4 oz butter
1 cup superfine sugar {I subbed in 1 cup Splenda and 1/2 tsp bulk stevia}
2 eggs, beaten lightly
1 cup plain yogurt
3 Tbl lemon juice
1 Tbl lemon zest
2 1/2 cups self raising flour
1/2 tsp baking soda

Mix the butter and sugar together ’til fluffy.  Add the eggs and incorporate well.  Add in the yogurt, lemon juice, lemon zest, flour, and baking soda.  Mix well.

Spoon (it’s way to thick to pour) mixture into a 9″ cake pan and bake 45 minutes in a 350F degree oven.  {Mine only took 35 minutes}.  Cake is done if toothpick comes out clean.

While cake is still hot pour the syrup over the cake and let the cake sit for 5 minutes before slicing.

Syrup:

1/3 cup sugar
3 Tbl lemon juice
zest of 1 lemon

My syrup didn’t turn out like I wanted but it did add some more lemon into the cake.  I ended up making a lemon drizzle and putting, way too much, over the cake.  The cake wasn’t real sweet and had just the right lemony flavor.  Good cake!

The recipe adapted from Donna Hay’s the new cook page 181

Want More?  -> LEMONS!

 

{EwE} When Life Gives You Lemons…

.. make Lemonade.  Not this time.  Try Lemon Bars instead.

These are no-cook lemon bars and they are very lemony.  A graham cracker crust covered with a nice VERY lemony, cream cheesy filling.   Along with fat free condensed milk it is a quick and easy dessert. And only 150 calories/2″ square.

The recipe is from Ellie’s So Easy on page 238.

For more:  Visit Eating with Ellie

 

{CC#10} Very Lemon Bread

LEMON!!  Tart! and sweet if made into a lovely loaf.  Like this one from Colorado Farmers’ Market Cookbook – my book of choice for October’s Cook Book Countdown.  This Very Lemon Loaf is just that VERY lemon!  3 Tbl of lemon zest mixed with 1 1/2 tsp lemon oil and soaked in a lemon glaze.  JUST RIGHT!  I usually cannot get enough lemon flavor into a cake, but this recipe from Maggie McCullough’s Bakery and Cafe was perfect!

I made a simple lemon glaze for the top because you can NEVER have too much lemon.  I love that you can see the little pieces of lemon zest in the cake.  Moist.  Lemony.

The recipe is on page 167.

I’m linking this post with Cookbook Countdown hosted by Kitchen Flavours and Emily’s Cooking (Makan2).

 

{IHCC}Lemon Ice Box Bars

This month we have an extra Potluck with an interesting twist – No Cook Challenge!!  It is so hot in so many places that not having to turn the oven on is a definite plus.

The easy way would be a salad of some kind.  Or maybe some Cerviche.  But we are not fans of that and we eat lots of salad so I really wanted something different.  What about a dessert?  It’s not often I make something that doesn’t need baking or cooking of some kind so when I found these NO COOKING lemon bars  from Past Chef Ellie Krieger it was obvious what I was going to make.  And it was easy.

Mom used to make lemon ice box PIES all the time.  So did my grandmother but I just haven’t done one in years.

Lots of lemon flavor in these.  More than I expected.  And super easy to make so I guess they will be making a regular appearance in this house.

Fat free condensed milk.  Low fat Cream cheese. Not much guilt here.  Too bad they don’t make a low fat low sugar condensed milk.  Ah, well, someday….

I did have one problem.  I never could get them to ‘harden’ where they could be sliced easily.  They just didn’t gel all the way.  I may have used too little gelatin but I’m not sure.  They were still tasty. Lots of flavor.

The recipe is from Ellie’s So Easy on page 238.  But I also found it on FoodTV.

For more No – Cook dishes visit I Heart Cooking Clubs.

 

 

{Cookbook Countdown} or how to use your cookbooks more…

Admit it.  You have more cookbooks than you actually use.  You read them.  You mark recipes.  You intend to go back and make. each. one.  But you don’t.  At least not all of them.  And don’t you just hate that.  Well here is the solution!

Joyce of Kitchen Flavors and Emily of Emily’s Cooking {Makan2} Foray have started Cookbook Countdown to solve that problem.  They started in January but I didn’t find it until late that month so decided to start in February.  And here we are, the first week of February and I am actually following through with my resolve to join and cook from a single underused cookbook each month – which is what Cookbook Countdown is all about.

For February I am using Deb Perelman’s the smitten kitchen cookbook.  You may know of Deb already from her website – Smitten Kitchen.  I have book marked so many of her recipes and not gone back to many.  Having the cookbook in front of me is old school.  And that’s me – Old School!!

To start the month I made her WHOLE LEMON BARS.

I don’t know about you but most of the lemon desserts I make just don’t have enough lemon flavor in them.  This one, however, blew me away with the deep and tart/sweet lemon flavor.  The reason for that?  Instead of just juice and zest Deb includes THE WHOLE LEMON!! Yes, the whole thing!!!

And it works.  Beautifully!  Tartly! Tastefully!

The lemons are sliced.  Extra pith is cut out and the rest of the lemon, sans seeds, is then processed into a puree with the sugar and the rest of the filling ingredients. What a great idea. Why didn’t I think of that when I was dissatisfied with wimpy lemon flavors??  Because I am not as creative as Deb. Which is why I love her cookbook.  So many flavors.  So many ‘out of the box’ {at least to me} flavor/ingredient combos.

Thanks Joyce and Emily for this easy solution to underused cookbooks.

The recipe is on page 217 of the smitten kitchen cookbook.  I also found it ONLINE.

“I’m linking this post with Cookbook Countdown hosted by Kitchen Flavours and Emily’s Cooking (Makan2) Foray“.

 

 

{WWDH} lemon curd cake

There are a lot of peppermint and chocolate dessert recipes/posts floating in the blogasphere this time of the year.  When it came my time to pick for this week’s Donna Hay selection I knew I would be chocolated out so I went for something a little lighter and more refreshing – LEMON!

This is an almond flour based cake with a really lemony curd filling.  Between the three layers!  Yes, we sliced this cake in thirds and then filled each space with lots of curd and then, because that wasn’t enough we topped it with more lemony flavor.

I would like to say this cake turned out nicely, but I found it to be rather dense (which is how the Hubs likes cake).  The curd, however, was perfect.  VERY Lemony (1/4 cups lemon juice in the recipe) and easy to make since it has whole eggs rather than just the yolks.

I will definitely make the curd again  – but maybe not the cake.

For make cakes visit Wednesdays with Donna Hay.  The recipe is from FLAVOURS  (page 50).

 

 

{WWDH} spaghetti with lemon, capers, and rocket

I will be the first to admit Donna Hay comes up with some interesting flavor combinations. Pasta and lemons? Ehhhhh…. But, folks, wrap that spaghetti around your fork ’cause this is GOOD stuff!!

You bite into the pasta and a hint of lemon enters your senses. Then you bite into a caper and it bites back with a little salt, a little tart. The rocket adds a little bitter and the Parmesan adds a little sour. {And if I had used the chilies it would have added a little heat.}

I was not expecting to like this AT. ALL. I was so wrong.

Slip on over the Wednesdays with Donna Hay and see how the others liked this pasta – Sarah’s choice this week. The recipe is on page 130 of Donna’s modern classics: Book 1 and I found it on Michelle’s blog, too if you want to try it.

Any time you would like to join us just leave a comment on the WWDH site. Love to have you.