Shortcut Lemon Cookies

I've been incredibly busy these past few weekends and sadly my baking, and this blog, have been among the collateral damage. My sister made these cookies yesterday and though I generally scoff at packaged baking mixes, they were pretty good! This is the recipe, as she made them with the addition of blueberry preserves and extra extract. Once again I used the amazingly good Ikea blueberry preserves. I'd prefer them to be made with butter over oil but the result wasn't too bad. The preparation couldn't be simpler.



Ingredients

• 1 (18.25 ounce) package lemon cake mix
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoon lemon extract
• turbinado sugar for decoration
  
• confectioners' sugar for decoration
• Ikea blueberry preserves (if desired)
  

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2. Pour cake mix into a large bowl. Stir in eggs, oil, and lemon extract until well blended. Drop teaspoonfuls of dough into a bowl of turbinado or confectioners' sugar. Roll them around until they're lightly covered. Once sugared, put them on an ungreased cookie sheet.If desired, drop a small spoonful of blueberry preserves, jam or anything else you like.
3. Bake for 6 to 9 minutes in the preheated oven. The bottoms will be light brown, and the insides chewy.

Summer Berry Lemon Tart

This week's recipe is a variation on a Gordon Ramsay recipe. I baked a simple tart crust which, although ugly, is delicious. Then I added a recipe I found for lemon curd, which is an eggy custard without the milk and topped it off with fresh summer berries. In this case, strawberries and blueberries. The lemon curd is reminiscent of a lemon sauce my mother makes but has a thicker consistency.

Ingredients

Tart Crust

1. 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2. 1/8 teaspoon salt
3. 1/2 cup unsalted butter
4. 1/4 cup granulated white sugar
5. 1 large egg, lightly beaten

Lemon Curd Filling

1. 3 large eggs
2. 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice (2-3 lemons) (do not use the bottled lemon juice)
3. 1 tablespoon finely shredded lemon zest
4. 3/4 cup granulated white sugar
5. 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature and cut into small pieces

Directions

Tart Crust

1. In a medium bowl, sift or whisk together the flour and salt. Set aside.
2. Place the butter in your mixer and beat until softened. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy.
3. Gradually add the beaten egg, beating just until incorporated. Don't over mix or the butter will separate and lighten in color.
4. Add flour mixture all at once and mix just until it forms a ball. Don't overwork or pastry will be hard when baked.
5. Flatten dough into disk, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 20 minutes or until firm.
6. Roll out dough on parchment paper with rolling pin until 1/8" thick and roughly 1" larger than the sides of your pan.
7. Place your tart pan upside down on the dough and flip parchment paper. Press into the sides of the pan.
8. Chill in refrigerator for an additional 20 minutes.
9. Place a sheet of parchment paper ontop of chilled dough then add pie wieghts or uncooked rice to weigh dough down while baking. Bake in 400 degree oven for 20-25 minutes until crust edges turn golden brown.
10. Remove weights and cool crust on wire rack before filling.

Lemon Curd Filling

1. In a stainless steel bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water, whisk together the eggs, sugar, and lemon juice until blended.
2. Cook, stirring constantly (to prevent it from curdling), until the mixture becomes thick (like sour cream or a hollandaise sauce) This will take approximately 10 minutes.
3. Remove from heat and immediately pour through a fine strainer to remove any lumps. Cut the butter into small pieces and whisk into the mixture until the butter has melted.
4. Add the lemon zest and let cool. The lemon curd will continue to thicken as it cools.
5. Cover immediately (so a skin doesn't form) and refrigerate for up to a week.

Pour cooled lemon curd filling into cooled pie crust and cover with your choice of berries. Refrigerate.

Lemon Sour Cream Poundcake

This recipe is all lemon, all the time. I think it's a fitting for summer, which is just around the corner. Not much to say other than to use fresh lemons and lemon zest. I used the juice of two lemons and the zest of one lemon for the cake, and the juice of two lemons for the icing. Because my oven is ancient and has virtually no thermostat, making it impossible to bake at 325, I baked this at 350 for around 80 minutes.

Ingredients

Cake

• 3 cups cake flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3 cups sugar
• 6 eggs
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (about two lemons)
• 1 tablespoon grated lemon peel (about one lemon)
• 1 cup sour cream

Icing

• 2 cups powdered sugar
• juice of two lemons

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease bundt cake pan. Dust pan with flour; tap out excess flour.
2. Sift flour, baking soda and salt into medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl at medium speed until fluffy. Gradually add sugar and beat 5 minutes. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating just until combined after each addition. Beat in lemon juice and peel. Using rubber spatula, mix in dry ingredients. Mix in sour cream. Transfer batter to prepared pan.
3. Bake cake until tester inserted near center comes out clean, about 1 hour 30 minutes. Let cake cool in pan on rack 15 minutes. Cut around cake in pan. Turn out cake.
4. Prepare icing by adding powered sugar to lemon juice until opaque but runny enough to pour. Then pour on still warm cake. Let cool completely.

Lemon Cream Cheese Bars

This week's recipe is really just an excuse to use my new Kitchenaid Stand Mixer. The recipe comes from the included recipe book. Honestly, the mixer was a bit of an impulse buy. I had a 30% off coupon for their website, which miraculously included the refurbished outlet store. So I only paid $139.00 for what once was sold for $400 when new. Until today I had managed to live without even a hand-held electric, so I'm still trying to figure out where the stand mixer fits in my life, other sitting pretentiously on my counter in gleaming chrome metalic. After making this recipe, I'm starting to see how it can be useful. I'm hoping to make bread sometime this week now that we've got pretty good baking weather. Unfortunatly, preparing everything in a stand mixer makes taking pictures a bit difficult. Thoughts and reactions on this recipe tomorrow.



Ingredients

Crust

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 2 sticks butter, chilled and cut into chunks

Cream Cheese Filling

• 1 8oz package light cream cheese
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Lemon Filling

• 4 eggs
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup flour
• Zest of one lemon
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (about 1 large lemons)

Directions

Crust
Place all ingredients in mixer bowl and STIR with flat beater 1 minute or until mixture starts sticking together. Press into ungreased 13x9 pan and bake at 350 for 14 to 16 minutes

Cream Cheese Filling
Place ingredients in mixer bowl and STIR with flat beater for 30 seconds. Turn to speed 4 and beat 2 minutes or until smooth and creamy. Pour over partially baked crust and bake for 6 to 7 minutes at 350 or until slightly set

Lemon Filling
Place all ingredients, except lemon juice, in mixer bowl and STIR with flat beater for 30 seconds. Turn to speed 2 and gradually add lemon juice. Mix about 30 second or until well blended. Pour over cream cheese filing and bake for 18 to 20 minutes at 350 or until filling is set. Cook completely in pan. Sprinkle with powdered sugar if desired.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

I've never made Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins before and figured I would give it a shot. I found this recipe online and it looked as good as any other. I think the flavor will be a bit on the subtle side so the addition of the glaze seems to be a necessity.



Ingredients

3 cups of all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 Tbsp poppy seeds

10 Tbsp unsalted butter (1 1/4 stick), softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 Tbsp lemon zest

Glaze Ingredients

2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 cup confectioner's sugar

Directions

1. Adjust the oven rack to the middle-lower part of the oven. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, poppy seeds, and salt and set aside.
3. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar together, beating until fluffy (about 2 minutes with an electric mixer). Add eggs one at a time, beating until incorporated after each one. Beat in the lemon zest.
4. Beat in one half of the dry ingredients until just incorporated. Beat in one third of the yogurt. Beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients. Beat in a second third of the yogurt. Beat in the remaining dry ingredients and then the remaining yogurt. Again be careful to beat until just incorporated. Do not over beat.
5. Distribute the muffin dough equally among the cups of a greased muffin tin. Bake until muffins are golden brown, about 25 to 30 minutes. Test with a long toothpick to make sure the center of the muffins are done. Set muffin pan on wire rack to cool. After 5 minutes, remove muffins from pan.
6. While the muffins are cooling, in a bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar and lemon juice for the glaze. Add more lemon juice if necessary. While the muffins are still a bit warm, brush the glaze over each muffin.

Lemon Cranberry Muffins

A good friend of mine suggested I bake lemon cranberry muffins this week. Unfortunately, she didn't have a recipe but thought the combination would work well together, and I have to agree with her. I found a recipe for Tim Horton's Style Lemon Cranberry Muffins. Apparently Tim Hortons is a Dunkin Donuts type shop that is popular in Canada and other places no one really wants to live. The recipe is very heavy on oats and sparing with flour. I think I'd prefer a more cake-like muffin if I were to use this recipe again and would use less oats and more flour. Also, the recipe called for egg beaters but I used real eggs instead. Curiously, the second batch came out much better than the first. This could be down to the baking powder having time to activate. Admittedly, I was having trouble controlling the temperature on my gas oven so that may have lead to poor showing. In an abundance of caution, I would let the batter sit 10 minutes before baking.


Ingredients
• 3 cups oats
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup cranberries, rough chopped
• 1 cup low-fat plain yogurt
• 1/2 cup oil
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons finely grated lemon peel
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Mix oats, flour, baking powder, salt and chopped cranberries in one bowl; set aside.
3. In second bowl mix yogurt, oil, brown sugar, Egg Beaters, lemon peel, cinnamon and vanilla together. Fold all ingredients together in one bowl. Place batter into muffin tins (nonstick or lined with paper liners).
4. Bake at 350 degrees F for 35 minutes.
5. Allow to cool on wire rack out of the tins.