A Muffin To Welcome 2021

Happy New Year! 

I try to bake with seasonal foods, I really do. But sometimes there will be an item at the market that just calls out to me. That happened when I passed the produce section of Whole Foods on my way to get some non-dairy ricotta filled tortellini (they are the only local store that carries this item as far as I know). The fresh raspberries were so beautiful and red and juicy looking that I couldn't resist.

To make up for failing to use seasonal, I did use lots of Meyer lemon zest and juice, along with the raspberries and  non-dairy ricotta cheese (Kite Hill makes a delicious ricotta), to make these light and bright muffins. You can, of course, use regular lemons and regular ricotta cheese. That dollop of sweet lemony creaminess hidden toward the bottom is such a joy to discover as you eat the muffin! The fragrance is amazing, too. The raspberries are a bright color note and provide natural sweetness, too. By putting them into the top batter, it helps them not sink to the bottom. Try them yourself and see if you don't agree that straying from seasonal now and then is delicious.

Raspberry and Meyer Lemon Muffins
Makes 12

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup granulated sugar
finely grated zest of one Meyer lemon (or regular lemon if Meyer unavailable), divided

2 eggs, beaten 

1/4 cup unsalted butter or margarine, melted and cooled

juice of 1 Meyer lemon, seeds removed

1 cup soy creamer or whole milk or buttermilk

1/4 cup ricotta cheese
1 teaspoon milk or soy creamer
2 teaspoons powdered sugar

1 heaping cup fresh raspberries, washed and drained
about 1 tablespoon clear sparkling or sanding sugar (optional)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Spray a 12 cup muffin pan with baking spray (I used a six pan oversized muffin pan). Set aside.

In a bowl, sift the dry ingredients together. Add half the lemon zest and stir to distribute.

In a second bowl, whisk together the egg, butter, lemon juice and milk or buttermilk.

Prepare the filling by stirring together the ricotta cheese, milk, powdered sugar and the remaining half the lemon zest in a small bowl until completely combined. Set aside.

Add the wet ingredient mixture all at once to the flour mixture and stir together with a fork, just until all the dry ingredients have been moistened. Don't overmix.

Scoop enough of the batter into the prepared muffin tins to cover the bottom. Dollop about a teaspoon of the ricotta mixture on top. Stir the raspberries gently into the remaining batter, then top the ricotta mixture in the pans with the berry-rich batter, distributing evenly. Sprinkle with sanding sugar, if desired, distributing evenly.

 Bake in preheated oven for 17 - 25 minutes until tops are golden brown and the center springs back when pressed down with a clean finger. Remove from the oven and cool on a rack 3-5 minutes, then removed carefully from the muffin tin and serve.

 

Little Lemon Cake

Fortune smiled on one of my sisters many moons ago when she met and later married her Sweetie. He is a good man and they love each other dearly and he takes such good and gentle care of her. He looks kind of like a Roman emperor and gets better looking with age. He says that is because of going bald. We just returned from a visit to their beautiful home. It was a great visit, especially meeting their new cat Foxy. We enjoyed the cake and tea. Those beautiful plates and cups are part of a set from his mom. It's a breakfast set and includes egg cups, but makes a great tea set, too.

One of the things I like to do when I visit this family is to bring something baked to go with tea. My sister's Sweetie really appreciates these goodies and I like making something different each time to see if he enjoys it. I know that Natashya enjoys the treats, too, but I often don't know how to let her hubby know how much I appreciate him and how happy he makes her, so this is one way.

This time I brought a small lemon Bundt cake, flavored with Meyer lemons from my own bush. It had an intense yellow color from the farm eggs brilliant egg yolks. One of our neighbors gave me the eggs and they really do taste better than eggs from the store.

This is a simple to make cake that can be stirred together with a wooden spoon. It is a variation on one in the Great British Baking Show cookbook I received for Christmas. They baked theirs in a loaf pan and iced it with a confectioner's sugar icing. I baked mine in that small Bundt pan, used melted margarine instead of olive oil, and did a poke cake style topping, using zest and lemon juice and sugar and spooning it over the top of the skewered cake until it was absorbed. That kept the cake fairly moist and certainly elevated the lemon flavor.

This cake is somewhat moist with a looser crumb than a pound cake. The cake itself isn't too sweet, but with either icing or topping it is sweeter...you can choose to serve it without those if you prefer a less sweet cake. The recipe said that the flavor is better after 24 hours. We had it about 20 hours after it was made and it really was flavorful and delicious! Do try it yourself. I hope you have a kitchen scale for weighing the dry ingredients...I don't know the substitutions to make it cups. The glaze is my own, so I used cups there. Hope it isn't too confusing.

Lemon-Yogurt Small Bundt Cake
A variation of the Greek Lemon-Yoghurt Loaf Cake in
The Great British Bake Off - Great Cakes and Bakes to Make at Home 
Serves 8

150g All-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
50g ground almonds
200g granulated sugar
finely grated zest of one large lemon
3 eggs, room temperature
125 ml yogurt (I used Russian style, they call for Greek style)
125 ml non-dairy margarine or butter, melted & cooled (or use mild olive oil)

Lemon Glaze
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F after you have gathered and measured your ingredients and the butter or margarine has cooled.

Grease and flour a small Bundt cake pan. Set aside.

Put the flour, baking powder, salt and ground almonds into a bowl and whisk to combine. Set aside.

Put the sugar and the lemon zest into a bowl and use clean fingers to rub the zest into the sugar. The mixture will resemble damp sand when you are done. Stir into the flour mixture. Make a well in the center.

Re-use the lemon-sugar bowl to whisk the eggs, then add the yogurt and mix, then the melted butter or margarine or olive oil and whisk to thoroughly combine.

Pour the wet ingredients into the well in the dry ingredients, then stir with a wooden spoon until thoroughly combined.

Scrape the mixture with a spatula into the prepared pan and spread to even the top. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 40 minutes, then check every 5 minutes until well risen and a deep golden brown; a skewer inserted into the widest part should come out clean.

Towards the end of the baking time make the lemon glaze so it's ready when the cake is done. In a small bowl mix the lemon zest, lemon juice and sugar. Stir to dissolve the sugar.

Once the cake is ready, remove from the oven and set on a wire rack. Cool for 5 minutes, then turn out onto the wire rack. Place a plate under the rack to catch any drips. Use a skewer to poke the cake all over, then use a teaspoon to slowly drizzle the glaze over the top of the cake into the skewer holes. Keep going around the cake and drizzling until the glaze is used up. Leave the cake until it is cool and the glaze has set.

To store, wrap well in foil or plastic wrap or store in an airtight container. Eat within 4 days. The flavor and aroma will be even more lemony a day or so after baking.

The Tang Of Lemon

Don't you just love the tang of lemon? The fragrance is awesome, too, especially if the lemons are Meyer lemons. Recently I was gifted with a half dozen beautiful Meyer lemons (thank you Andersons!) so today I used three of them to make one of my favorite cookies, Lemon Bars.

It's been a while since I made 'em, so I scouted through some internet sites like Food Network and Betty Crocker and AllRecipes to get some ideas, then made my own recipe. I used a microplane grater to grate the zest because then you get just the yellow part, which has all those tangy lemon oils. I also used the technique of rubbing the zest into the sugars in both crust and filling to release those oils into the sugar. You get a very even distribution of flavor that way.

I decided on the 8-inch square pan as the right size since I didn't want to use all of my lemons on this one dessert. Using heavy duty foil to line the pan makes it really easy to cut the bars when they are cooled, so I went that route.

For the base I used brown sugar for the slightly butterscotch flavor it gives, plus some powdered sugar since the cornstarch enhances the shortbread quality. Of course I used non-dairy margarine instead of butter.

For the filling I was generous with the lemon zest and the eggs and I'm glad I was because these bars were really tangy and the filling was gooey but held together when I cut them.

I cut the finished bars into 16 squares and put powdered sugar on half. Sweetie prefers his with no powdered sugar, but I was taking some to a friend who is not feeling so well. Nothing like a sunny lemon bar to brighten up a rainy day!

Elle's Lemon Bars
Make 16 cookies

Crust:
1/4 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar
1/4 teaspoons salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) non-dairy margarine, cold

Filling:
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 - 2 tablespoons grated lemon zest (I used about 1 1/2 tablespoons)
1/4 cup flour
3 eggs
1/2 cup lemon juice, seeds removed

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a greased 8-inch square baking pan with foil, leaving some foil hanging over the edges. Grease the foil. (I used Pam spray oil.) Set aside.

For the crust, place the lemon zest and the brown sugar in a medium bowl. With clean hands, use your fingers to rub the zest and sugar together until zest if fully combined with the sugar. Add the flour and confectioners' sugar  and salt and whisk the mixture until combined. Use a pastry blender or two table knives to cut the cold butter into the flour mixture until butter is in very small pieces. Turn the mixture into the prepared pan and, with very clean hands, pat the mixture down firmly to form an even crust, with a small amount (about 1/2 inch) of crust up the sides of the pan.

Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes. Crust should be barely light brown.

While crust is baking, prepare the filling:
Place the granulated sugar into the same bowl you used for the crust. Add the lemon zest and, using clean fingers, rub the zest into the sugar. Sugar may look like damp sand since you are using a lot of zest. Whisk in the flour and then the eggs. Once well combines, whisk in the lemon juice. Taste a bit of the mixture and add more zest if you like it zestier.

When the crust is barely light brown, remove the pan from the oven and pour the filling over the hot crust. Return the pan to the oven and reduce the heat to 325 degrees. Bake for about 15-20 minutes more. When done there will be a bit of browning around the edges of the cookies and the center will only jiggle slightly, if at all.

Remove the pan from the oven and cool on a rack until pan is barely warm to the touch. Transfer to the refrigerator and cool for two hours.

Remove the pan from the fridge, loosen the foil and use the foil to lift the cookie from the pan to a cutting board. Carefully cut the bars into sixteen cookies. If desired, sift some confectioner's sugar (about 1 teaspoon) over the cooled and cut cookies before serving.

Italian With A Touch of Lemon

I've made focaccia bread before and shared it with you, too. I love that it is the kind of bread that is easy, delicious, and can be made ahead. This time I kept the beloved Italian features of olive oil and Parmesan cheese, but instead of herbs or grapes or other adornments, I celebrated citrus season with fresh Meyer lemon zest on top.

Because I needed to keep this bread for a number of days before I would be serving it, I froze it and then defrosted the loaf in the microwave on low power, then heated it at 225 degrees F. right before serving.  It makes a deeply flavored, moist bread and doesn't need any additional oil or butter. The recipe actually makes two loaves, so you can keep one in your freezer for when you need a bit of Italian delight.

Fast Focaccia with Lemon Zest

1 (1/4 ounce) packet active dry yeast

1 teaspoon sugar

1 1/2 cups warm water (105-115 degrees)

2 3/4 cups bread flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons olive oil

Toppings: olive oil, zest of 1-2 Meyer (or other) lemons, colored part only; Parmesan cheese, grated; sea salt (optional)

Directions:

Mix the yeast, sugar and water in a small bowl. Let proof for 10 minutes (until bubbles begin to form).

In large bowl, stir together flour and salt.

Add the yeast mix and olive oil to the dry ingredients and combine.

When dough has pulled together, turn out onto lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic. Gather into a ball. With hands coated with olive oil, oil the surface of the dough ball. Turn the bowl over the dough ball. Let dough rise in a warm place for 25 minutes.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Put 2 tablespoons olive oil into bottom of 9 or 10 inch diameter cake pan. Swirl to coat bottom and sides with the oil. Repeat with another 2 tablespoons olive oil in another pan.

Punch dough down. Divide dough in half.  Place one piece of dough in each in oiled cake pan. Spread dough toward sides with your fingers, pushing fingers down into dough to create dimples or pockets.

Drizzle top of each pan with 1 tablespoons olive oil, then sprinkle with lemon zest and some Parmesan cheese or sea salt, if desired.

Bake for 13-15 minutes until golden brown.