Kitchen Wench

If I had to rank my flavor preferences, I would say that citrus-based desserts are generally near the bottom of the list.  I’d rather eat chocolate or berries before, say, lemon meringue pie.  Generally, I don’t like lemon-flavored sweets because they are either too tart or remind me of dish soap.  But Meyer lemons are an entirely different story.

Meyer lemons are a cross between regular lemons and mandarin oranges.  They have a thinner skin, are not as tart, and have a wonderful tangerine-y fragrance to them.  They have a very short growing season (which is happening right now) and are usually rather expensive.  So, when I saw them for sale in Whole Foods for $1.99/lb, my locavore guilt and hoarding tendencies combined head-on with the rush of impulse shopping, and I walked out of the store with four lbs of lemons.

So, what to do with all these lemons?  Some Googling got me this list of 100 Things to Do with Meyer Lemons (it was like they wrote this article for me).  I’ll admit, some of the suggestions are a bit of a stretch (for instance, “35. Throw a Meyer lemon for your dog to catch and play with”), but most are pretty mouth-watering.  This post is all about number 14, Meyer lemon curd.

Lemon curd is surprisingly easy to make and calls for ingredients that you probably already have on hand.  If you’re ambitious, you could can it, but that’s a bit out of the scope of a weeknight project.  It also freezes well, thank goodness, because I made four cups of it.  This stuff is fantastic over fresh fruit, skyr, yogurt, cheese, cake, bread… Honestly, Meyer lemon curd would make an old rubber tire taste good.  I could drink it straight out of the tupperware.  It’s that delicious.

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Cake is kind of my white whale.  For the longest time, I just couldn’t get it right, despite being able to handle seemingly more complicated things (e.g., pie crust) without incident.  After a slew of failures early on in my baking career (bundt cakes that got stuck in the pan, layer cakes that resembled the leaning tower of Pisa, etc), I came to the sorry conclusion that I might just be better off buying a box mix.  But you can always tell when cake comes from a mix — it’s moist and has a nice texture, but it never tastes homemade.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my fair share of artificially-flavored things, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the taste of real butter or vanilla.

But this cake  is practically idiot-proof:  it is tender, moist, and light every time.  Just like a box cake, except it tastes about a million times better.  The secret is in the buttermilk.  I’ve never baked anything with buttermilk that didn’t turn out amazing.

The original recipe calls for raspberries, but you can use any berry you want.  The other change I made is the addition of almond extract.  Having made this cake several times now, I find that it’s a bit dull with just vanilla.  The almond brings out the sweetness and lightness of the cake and contrasts wonderfully with the berries.  If you don’t like almond flavor, some citrus zest would also work nicely.

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