Nope, didn’t feel the quake, wouldn’t have known it had happened if I hadn’t glanced at a headline in my inbox just now. A 3.9 on the East Bay tonight is how we like them: for entertainment purposes only.
I was busy in the kitchen with fond memories of my in-laws visiting from Maryland thirty-odd years ago. I’d said to my MIL, Remember that Hot Milk Sponge Cake that you and my mom both used to make from the 1950s Betty Crocker cookbook (and that I’d found a pristine copy of at a garage sale my senior year of high school–score!)
Yeah?
Well, I substitute fresh-squeezed lemon juice for 2/3 of the milk.
Her next words were diplomatic but her face was in utter disbelief at such a use of such an expensive ingredient: Why would you do that?
I laughed and gestured: Because I have a tree!
And because it makes almost a lemon curd effect across the top by the next day, if the cake somehow lasts that long with kids in the house.
So. There’s that almond orange muffin recipe I experimented my way towards and that Nina thoroughly approved of during our yarn crawl last week. We are going again. There must be more snacks.
But my freezer is now empty of that puree and my mandarins need another month and it would be a crime to pick them too early.
The Meyer lemons, on the other hand…
But their piths are famously bitter. You boil seedless oranges for 20 minutes to make the orange puree (discard the water they’re boiled in) to get rid of any bitterness. Okay, I made it 25 with the Meyers. I drained them. I cut them open and spent awhile picking out every single seed.
My Cuisinart bowl being in the dishwasher, I threw them and the juice that had come out of them in the blender and let it run for awhile.
It came out the texture of the most fabulous lemon mousse you ever saw. I measured out 2/3 of a cup and then put the rest in silicone molds in the freezer for next time.
So here’s how I tweaked the recipe:
Lemon Almond muffins (gluten free, wheat free)
2 c. almond flour
1 tsp baking powder
about that much salt. I dunno, half a teaspoon-ish?
a hair under 3/4 c sugar, which is a lot, but these are lemons we’re talking about. When I’m making this with oranges I use 1/3 to 1/2 c; my husband’s sweet tooth prefers the 1/2 c.
a generous 1/4 c melted butter, ie that’s what it was meant to be but it measured out closer to 1/3 and I’m okay with that and remind me not to grab the Costco butter that’s all one pound lumps next time
3 eggs (I know, living like kings here. Eggs!)
and the 2/3 c pureed boiled lemon
12 muffins, 350F, 23 minutes in my oven. Will be on the pale side when the toothpick is clean. As always, almond flour muffins hold together better if you wait till they’re completely cool to eat.
Definitely, definitely making these again.