Lemon Curd

I bought a bag of lemons for my marmalade experiment last weekend. I only used 2 and have 4 lemons left.

In the spirit of canning and jamming, I decided to make lemon curd.

Among the 6 canning books I borrowed from the library is one titled Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It: And Other Cooking Projects by Karen Solomon.

This book does not have a lot of jam recipes but it has a lot of other interesting projects. Like making your own crackers and marshmallow. It also has a section for curing meat and fish. We are not eating meat right now but I am really interested in the beef jerky recipe.

HCB: Lemon Canadian Crown

I have been looking forward to this cake for a while. I love lemon curd and ladyfingers and the combination sounded so yummy.

I made the ladyfingers on Sunday before going to the farmer's market. It came together pretty easily. I made 1/2 recipe and it took me about 1/2 hour to prep and mix everything. They finished baking in 8 minutes, giving me just enough time to wash the dishes.

HCB: Swedish Pear and Almond Cream Cake

I must tell you now that this cake is so good! I had some expectations about this cake, having heard from Monica and Rose that it is good. I am still surprised though, not because I don't believe them, but simply because I did not expect it to be this good!

But first, let's start at the beginning. It started with beautiful free range eggs and butter.

HCB: Chocolate Bull's-Eye Cakes and She Loves Me Cake

Another weekend of two-fer for me...

Chocolate Bull's-Eye Cakes

Marie has said, this cake is very easy to make, even though the instruction is 4 pages long. And she was right. And as I discovered, while putting this cake together, I could recite how to make this cake from memory. I don't remember the amount of any of the components, LOL, so I still need to look at the recipes, but I know the method by heart.

First you make beurre noisette, which smells so heavenly (or orgasmic, as Raymond would tell you). Then keep it warm while you heat up the eggs over simmering water. Beat the eggs until quadrupled, then sacrifice a quarter of it to the beurre noisette. Next, fold in the flour cornstarch mixture into the eggs in 2 addition. Finally, fold in the beurre noisette mixture.

While the cake was baking in the ramekins, I made the sugar syrup. Nothing to it, just boiled some sugar and water. I don't have Navan or vanilla liquor so I used Grand Marnier instead.

After the cake is syruped, apply some apricot glaze all around the cake. Opening the fridge, I realized all I have is raspberry fruit spread, so that's what I used instead. I just mix it with some water, didn't add any alcohol as I suspected the cake is boozy enough already with 3 Tablespoon of Grand Marnier.

Next, make the chocolate cream filling. This is very easy also. Melt some chocolate in heavy cream, pour into egg yolk sugar mixture, then heat up the whole thing until almost boil and thick. And as I am typing this post, I realized I had forgotten to add vanilla to this cream. Oh well. It's too late by now *grin*.

Then make chocolate glaze by melting some chocolate with cream over simmering water. Or you can do like me and be lazy and melt some chocolate instead of making the glaze.

And finally, adorn with a chocolate butterfly. Melt some chocolate and fill a parchment cone and pipe. This part is not hard. The hardest part is piping the chocolate to look like butterfly. I find I had to do several tries before getting the shape that I like.

Tasting impressions:
Oh man oh man. This is so good. The sponge cake is so moist and boozy it's so good. The cream filling is so yummy and fit so well with it.

She Loves Me Cake

This cake, according to Rose, feeds 16 people. So I made 2/5th of the recipe. Why the complicated math? Well, there are 5 eggs, so I thought I should make fractions of 5. I know, I know, I'm nuts. But that's how my brain works yesterday. Blame it on the sleep deprivation. I stayed up for new year's and got up early.

2/5th of the recipe, I discovered, made 8 cupcakes (40 grams each). There are only 7 in this picture. The 8th cupcake didn't make it to the picture table, it ended up in the photographer's tummy.

This cake is so easy to make as well. Even easier than the Bull's-Eye. The hardest part is weighing the batter into each cupcake wrapper. I do not like this weighing business. I'd much rather pipe decorations. But I wanted to have even size cupcakes, so weigh I did.

First, mix the egg yolks with vanilla and 1/4th of the milk. Then combine all the dry ingredients in the mixer, add the butter and the rest of the milk and mix until combined. Then add the egg yolk mixture in 2 additions.

While the cupcakes were baking, I made the lemon curd. Also 2/5th of the recipe.

I made some royal icing and pipe the individual cupcakes. My icing was pretty thick, or so I thought, but it ended up a little runny by the time the photos were taken. And as you can read from the writing, I just had a birthday a couple of days ago.

Tasting impressions:
YUM! This cake is really good. We love the tangy-ness of the curd. It fit well with the moist cake. 

HCB: Lemon Meringue Cake

Baking is so fascinating.

When you heat up the 3 egg yolks and 1/4 cup of sugar over simmering water until it's lukewarm (90 degrees), and then beat it with a mixer on high speed for 5 minutes, the mixture will quadrupled in size, fluffy, and ribbon-y. This mixture makes a cake called genoise.

When you skip the heating up portion and beat the same mixture on high speed for 5 minutes, the mixture will be thick, fluffy, and ribbony. This mixture makes a cake called biscuit.

Like I said, fascinating!!!

First part of the cake is making the lemon curd. Rose said you would only need 2/3 of the curd for this cake, but she likes to make the full recipe of the curd to have leftover for toast. I'm making 1/2 recipe of the cake, I was going back and forth about whether to do 1/3 or 1/2. In the end, I made 1/2 a recipe.

I won't go into the details of curd-making as I've done this several times. While the curd is cooling in the fridge, I started making the biscuit. The biscuit baked in 1/2 hour. While the biscuit is cooling, I made the lemon syrup.



While making the lemon syrup, I thought, hm.. I should've made the lemon syrup first so it will have time to cool while the cake is baking. What can I say, the organized part of me was taking a vacation :).

But wait, hang on a second - reading the recipe - it looks like that I wait until the cake cooled before applying the syrup! So the syrup doesn't need to be applied while it's warm. Phew! I'm okay then :)

After the cake cooled, I took the top "skin" off both cakes, applied the syrup, and sandwiched them together with all the curd. Yes, people, I use the full 1/2 recipe of the curd.



Finally, the italian meringue topping. I've made this before for mousseline buttercream. Though this time it's quite a relief to make a higher quantity for sugar syrup. Made it much easier to measure the temperature of the syrup.

The italian meringue came together without an issue as well. I piled it high on the cake and tried to make the swirls like the cake in the book. I baked it in the 500 degrees oven for 3 minutes, turning it every 1 minute. It was a little too brown, I think, but at least it didn't get burned and it was evenly brown LOL.



Tasting impression:
I am a little disappointed. The cake is too sweet for my taste. I did reduce quite a bit of the sugar in both the lemon curd and the sugar syrup. I didn't dare reducing the sugar in the cake and the meringue - for fear it will compromise their structure. Oh well, I have a solution to my problem: eat SMALLER slices!

HCB: Baby Lemon Cheesecake

When I got my copy of RHC last September - leafing through the book and DROOLING over the pictures - one of the pictures that cause the drooling reaction is the baby lemon cheesecake. Not that I particularly like cheesecake, on the contrary, but because that picture is so nicely done. The little cheesecake round, on top of a biscuit, the smooth and shiny curd in a perfect swirl shape around the top. And the baby blue plate with its white adornment around it. It all just looked so enticing…

I don’t like cheesecake AT ALL. And I’ve tried many different ones. None are homemade of course but still. I always find it a bit odd because I do like cheese, albeit I can only eat small quantities on it.

My friends are puzzled. How can you not like cheesecake? I would reply by saying, “I don’t know. It is odd as I like cheese. But I always find cheesecake too sweet, too rich, too much on everything.” This is how I usually try a cheesecake: I would take a spoonful, then another small spoonful, then pushed it aside. I’m done.

I skipped the pumpkin cheesecake that was on the rotation last year. This time however, I thought, why not. The picture does look very very enticing. And it’s hard for me to pass on making baby anything, since it looks so cute.

So I set forth to make it - on the same weekend that I made the Trifle, nonetheless. Saturday was full on trifle making day. Sunday morning is cheesecake day. Have I mentioned that I’m crazy about baking yet? ^_^

I split the recipe in ½ (I’m getting pretty good at it). First I made the biscuit. I have a quarter sheet pan from Nordic Ware, perfect for this.

The biscuit came together perfectly. The only surprise is that it takes about 14 minutes to bake, instead of the prescribed 7.

I waited until the biscuit cooled on the rack before starting on the cheesecake. Plus it’s lunch time and I made chicken mushroom pizza.

After my stomach is satisfied and there’s no trace of the pizza except for the dirty baking stone, I set forth to combine the cheesecake filling. Cream cheese and sugar are beaten until combined, and then beat in the egg and egg yolks. In go lemon juice and salt until incorporated, then sour cream.

I used a pair of shears to cut the biscuit, using the bottom of the cupcake molds as a template. I taste the scraps of the biscuit, yum, it taste so good and spongy.

I followed Rose’s instruction of using a measuring cup to pour the batter in. I weigh each cupcake cavity to precision; I want these little babies to have the same size.

Cheesecake baked in 30 minutes. I let it cool – with ice in the hot water – then cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Next is my favorite part – to make and to eat: the tangy lemon curd. I’ve made this several times so I won’t go over the details. Once curd is done, I transfer it to the measuring cup as well and pour onto each cheesecake. At this point I realized that I took the curd a little too far as it’s not really pourable consistency. Ok, no problem, I use the small spatula to scoop out the curd and smooth it out onto each cheesecake. Then everything is refrigerated for 2 hours.

Un-molding is a little tricky. I have to push up the bottom of the pan up, hold this with one hand, and then used a big metal spatula to move it to a plate. The image of forklifts came to mind. I am fork lifting the baby cheesecake LOL.

Tasting impression: Man oh man, gotta revise my previous statement. I like cheesecake, but only if it’s Rose’s recipe :)). This baby is so good. It’s smooth and creamy and I love the tanginess of the lemon curd.

HCB: Banana Refrigerator Cake and Lemon Poppy Seed-Sour Cream Cupcakes

I am blogging about 2 cakes, but I didn't make 2 cakes this weekend. I actually made the banana cake last October. I did, however, made Lemon Poppy Seed Cupcakes yesterday. I missed it on the bake-a-long so now am trying to catch up.

Back to the banana cake. I love bananas. It is one of my favorite fruit and probably is the one I ate the most. Prior to being part of HCB I used to make banana bread once a month. When I got Rose's new book I couldn't wait to make this cake. So much so that it was one of the 1st cakes I made. I hope it still qualifies as an entry as I haven't blogged about it.

This cake was very easy to make. Process the banana and creme fraiche until smooth in the food processor, add eggs,lemon zest, and vanilla. Then incorporate the flour, salt, and leavening to the banana mixture. Into the oven it goes. The cake baked up very nice with a little dome in the middle.



I read somewhere in Rose's blog that the banana cake would have a little dome because the banana fibers are so strong so it is not possible to make a flat banana cake (you would have to trim it if you want it flat).

Next is the frosting. Also very easy to make. Heat the white chocolate until almost melted, wait until it cool. Then process the cream cheese, butter, and creme fraiche until smooth and creamy. Add the white chocolate into it, and add the almond extract.

And that's it folks!

Decorating is even easier. I wanted to make it look like the book so I just spread the frosting on the cake with an offset spatula and try to make the swirls as nice as I can.



Tasting impression. I love this cake. Sort of expected as I like banana so much. However, I think I should have let the bananas ripen more so it would have more flavor. In any case, it is a very good cake. The frosting is a little rich and sweet for me, I think it's because the white chocolate is very rich. There is not a lot of frosting though so it's still okay.



Now let's talk about the lemon poppy seed-sour cream cake. Boy that is a long name for a cake. I want to make 1/2 a recipe again so I made it as cupcakes.

This cake was also easy to make. Whisk the eggs, 1/4 of the sour cream, and vanilla. Then mix all the dry ingredients in the mixer, add the butter and remaining sour cream. Then add the egg mixture in 2 parts.

I used a tip from Hector from his Hector's Takes website in filling up a cupcake pan, which is to weigh it to make sure each cupcake are the same size. This is also a good rule for me as I tend to overfill the cupcake molds, so weighing it keep me in line! LOL!



1/2 recipe of the Lemon Poppy Seed-Sour Cream cake makes 9 cupcakes, weighing about 58 grams a cupcake. I only have 1 silicone cupcake pan so I have to bake twice, but they still turn out nice. It takes about 35 minutes to bake these instead of the prescribed 45-50 minutes.

Once they are baked, I poked them all over with a skewer, then brush with the lemon syrup. Picture from the top, you can see the skewer holes!

HCB: Woody's Lemon Luxury Layer Cake

Before I start with my Lemon Luxury Cake tale, let me begin by telling you about the lemon roses. I made them a couple of weekends ago. I bought over half a dozen of lemons. I've never made this before and I was afraid I'd fail. The recipe (on page 432 of Heavenly Cakes) tells you to peel the skin of the lemon with a paring knife. I don't understand what Rose meant by "start by cutting a round section across the base of the fruit but not all the way through," but I figured since I have so many lemons I should just start peeling. Then I boil sugar syrup, add the peel to the simmering syrup, cover the pan, remove from the heat, and let sit overnight. The next morning, remove the peel from the syrup to paper towels. I wasn't sure whether I should let it sit in the paper towel first until dried before moving on to the next step. So I went ahead anyway, curling each strip loosely around itself to form a rose. Then I let them dry for 1 hour. Then coat all sides of the peel with corn syrup. After 1 hour, apply a second coat, and then another coat after another hour. Oops, as I'm reading the recipe now I realize I made a mistake. It said here that after all those 3 coats of corn syrup, to allow the peel to dry completely which can take several days before storing in covered container. I missed this step. After a couple of hours of the third coat, I store it in a container and put it in the freezer. No wonder my lemon roses looks a bit different than the picture in the book. It is still pretty though, :). This is the picture of the lemon roses before the corn syrup applications.

Moving on to the cake. For once, I would not say that this is an easy cake to make. The recipe itself is four pages long. This is a big cake, so I decided to make it in 6-inch pans. 6-inch pan by volume is not exactly half of 9-inch pan, but when I did the math it comes up to 0.44 so for easiness' sake I divided everything by half.

First I made the lemon curd. I whisk the yolks, sugar, and butter until blended, then add the lemon juice and salt. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly. It takes a good 10-15 minutes before the mixture start turning opaque and yellow. I felt like I was stirring and stirring for the longest time. Then it takes another 10 minutes or so before it starts thickening. I must confess that I was really tempted to increase the heat but I didn't want it to curdle.

Next I made the white chocolate custard base. This calls for melting white chocolate and butter on a double boiler while stirring often. Then whisk the eggs lightly and then whisk it into the white chocolate mixture. Then continue mixing while heating it up until 140 degrees.

I then switched gears to composing the cake. Again, I substituted the cake flour with unbleached AP flour. I melted the white chocolate, then mix the butter, 2/3 of the milk with all the dry ingredients. Then incorporate the egg and 1/3 milk mixture. Then incorporate the white chocolate. Then bake the cake for 35 minutes. Everything went on swimmingly until I took the cake out of the pan and they look like this!

I put the lighter cake back to the oven and bake for another 5 minutes. It's done in the center but the top still has the light color. By the time I flip the cake out of the pan, it fell apart and taste odd. The other cake was fine, it was a bit dense - because I used the unbleached AP but it tasted okay. I could not figure out what went wrong with the other cake. I baked the cake on the 3rd rack from the bottom, on the same rack, I rotated the pan halfway through baking. I didn't open the oven door until 5 minutes at the end. I re-read the recipe 5 times and determined that I didn't not messed anything up. Using unbleached AP instead of cake flour would impact structure and texture but it should not impact taste - that is my understanding at least. Frustrated and confused, I gave up for the day and decided to redo the cake the next day.Day 2 of Lemon Cake adventure. I was sad and frustrated but determined to make the cake. This time I use cake flour. Everything went on swimmingly again, and when it's time to incorporate the melted white chocolate into the batter, I let it mix longer just to make sure. The cake baked for 35 minutes again but one of them sunk a little bit in the center and the other one sunk a lot on one side. To make matters worse, there is a big height difference! I weigh the batter when I distributed them between the 2 pans and they were both 301 grams. Argh... At this point, I was really frustrated. Though sadly thinking that of course the cake that I requested would be the one that gives me the biggest challenge.

Back to the buttercream. I cream the butter, then added the white chocolate custard base and mix until it achieved stiff peak. I didn't want to wait 1 1/2 - 2 hours so I chilled it for a few minutes in an ice bath. The buttercream came together nicely without any issue.

Lastly, composing the cake. I tried to make up for the sunken center and inconsistent sides with the buttercream. I know it will look funny when the cake is cut but I really want the exterior of the cake to look good and even. After 3 hours of numerous chilling/freezing the cake and using both bench scraper and heated offset spatula to smooth out the sides, here is the cake with a lemon rose in the center.


It is as smooth as I could get it to be. In retrospect, it is probably overkill to spend 3 hours composing the cake but I am very happy with the result.

Onto tasting. This cake is really good. It is rich though, I wonder if it's because of all those egg yolks! I would definitely make this cake again, but probably for special occassions since it does take some time and effort (and patience :)).