Summertime Dessert Series: Lemon-Lime Sponge Cake with Lime Seven Minute Frosting

Ah, summer.  I just love summertime desserts.  They are cool and refreshing and a great way to forget about the heat.  At least for a little while.  And here in the California Bay Area, have we ever got some summer heat!  After a cold and rainy Spring, Summer has come on and brought us temperatures in the 90s and 100s. Perfect weather for a nice, cool dessert.  I'm going to try to post a cool summertime dessert every week and this week I'm starting with this Lemon-Lime Sponge cake with cool lime Seven Minute Frosting.

I started with a recipe for a daffodil cake from the now out of print Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook. It's a hand me down from my mom, and one of my favorites.  There is a color picture index with a picture for EVERY recipe.  Some of the recipes are a little outdated (Eggs En Gelee or Fish Mousse, anyone?)  But there are some great classic recipes and it's one of the first places I usually look.

So, the Daffodil cake recipe is an orange lemon flavored cake, topped with an orange lemon icing.  I decided to go a different way with the cake and made a lemon lime sponge cake and topped it with seven minute frosting, one of my favorites, a fluffy cooked frosting.

Lemon-Lime Sponge Cake

1 1/4 cup egg whites

1 1/2 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp vanilla extract (instead of extract here, I scraped one vanilla bean)

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 cup cake flour

4 egg yolks

2 tsp lemon zest

2 tsp lime zest

If you look REALLY closely here, you can see the vanilla bean flecks

Preheat oven to 375F.  In a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat egg whites, cream of tartar, vanilla and salt on high speed until soft peaks form.   Sprinkle in sugar, two tablespoons at a time, while continuing to beat at high speed, until sugar dissolves and stiff glossy peaks form.  Reduce the mixer speed to low and add flour gradually, beating until just blended.  

In a separate bowl, beat yolks at high speed until thick and lemon colored.  Fold in half of the egg white mixture, along with the lemon and lime zest.  Drop alternating spoonfuls into a 10 inch tube pan.  Bake 35-40 minutes.

After removing fro the oven, invert cake and cool in pan for 1 hour. Placing it upside down on a wine or beer bottle works well for this.  While the cake cools, it's time to move on to the frosting.

I've seen several recipes for seven minute frosting, but this is the one that I used for this cake.  It is from The Fannie Farmer Baking Book, another of my favorite cookbooks.  "Seven Minute" is a misnomer, though, as it takes a bit longer to make.

Lime Seven Minute Frosting

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

pinch of salt

2 egg whites

1/4 cup cold water

2 tsp vanilla extract

zest and juice of 1 small lime

Combine all ingredients except vanilla in either a large, heat resistant mixing bowl, or the top of a large double boiler.  Set over simmering, but not boiling, water on low heat, making sure that  the bowl does not touch the water.

Beat with an electric beater until the frosting stands in peaks. This should take 5-7 minutes.  Remove from heat and continue to beat for a few more minutes, until frosting stiffens and stands in smooth, fluffy peaks.  Beat in vanilla, along with lime juice.  After frosting cake, sprinkle zest on top of cake.

I took this to a dinner at a friend's house and it got great reviews.  The hint of lemon and lime was perfect.


This post is linked at Sweets for a Saturday

Fresh Blueberry Bundt Cake

One of the reasons I love summer is the fresh fruit that is so readily available, especially the berries.  My family LOVES berries, all kinds.  Blueberries bring back memories of childhood.  I grew up in Maine and I think everyone has heard of wild Maine blueberries.  If you live out in the country, you likely have some wild blueberry bushes growing somewhere on your land (or some other berry-my mom has black raspberries growing all along her yard.)  

So the other day I made my inaugural trip to Costco (you're thinking, "What?!"- give me a break, I used to live overseas, no Costco there.)  Anyhow, they had these huge containers of beautiful blueberries, so I had to get some.  We've been snacking on them, putting them in our cereal, having blueberry pancakes, all the usual things.  But, we had a playdate to go to and I wanted to bring something yummy.  I had some buttermilk left over from the whoopie pies, and I wanted to use that if possible, too.  I didn't find what I was looking for in my cookbooks, but a quick search online gave me a recipe at Epicurious to work with.  The end result was a really moist, flavorful blueberry cake.

Aren't they beautiful?

Blueberry Buttermilk Cake

3 cups flour

1 Tbsp baking powder

3/4 Splenda for baking

3/4 cup butter or margarine (I used a 50/50 blend)

3 eggs

Zest of 1 large lemon

1 cup buttermilk

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 350F and prepare a large bundt pan.  I usually use Baker's Joy, although my stoneware bundt pan is pretty well seasoned, but I gave it a light spraying anyway. 

Combine the flour and baking soda in a medium bowl and set aside.  In another bowl, use a hand mixer or stand mixer to cream together the butter and sugar until nice and fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, combining well after each egg.

  

Combine the buttermilk and the vanilla.  Alternately add the dry and liquid ingredients to the butter/sugar combo, mixing well after each addition.  The batter should be thick and and airy. 

The next step is to lightly fold the blueberries in to the batter, trying to avoid breaking as few of the berries as possible, while distributing them evenly in the batter.  Transfer the batter to your prepared bundt pan, smoothing the batter in the pan.

Bake at 350F for one hour, or until a cake tester comes out cleanly.  We had to leave for swimming lessons and I was a little late getting this in the oven, so at 55 minutes, I turned off the oven and opened the door a crack, hoping for the best when we got back.  An hour later, we returned, I took the cake out of the oven, crossed my fingers and turned it out onto the cooling rack.  I needn't have worried.  The cake came right out of the pan and was fully baked.  I wrapped it up (still warm!) and rushed off to our playdate.  The cake got rave reviews from the moms and the kids in attendance.  

I'd make this again for a brunch, easily.  Or just to have on hand for a snack cake.  It's also a great cake to bring somewhere, as it traveled very well. It was easy to make and came out very moist and delicious.  

The Search for the Perfect Lemon Squares-Take 1

I still have an overabundance of lemons, which I love, and I'm on the search for the perfect lemon squares. I made a batch the other night, and although they were tasty, they weren't exactly what I was looking for.
Still, I'l share them and my ideas for improvement on the recipe.  I did a search for a unique recipe and found one that called for white chocolate chips here.

I followed the recipe just as she posted, but was not satisfied with the results.  The recipe follows, along with my notes for improvements.

White Chocolate Lemon Bars 

1 1/4 cups flour -divided
1 cup sugar-divided
1/3 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup white chips
2 eggs slightly beaten
The zest and juice from one lemon
Powdered sugar

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees
2. Stir together 1 cup flour and 1/4 cup sugar in medium bowl. Cut in butter with pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Press mixture onto the bottom of 9-inch baking pan.   (I think this crust was way too crumbly and think.  I think a little less flour would have made it work better)                        3. Bake 7 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven; sprinkle with chips.                               4. Stir together eggs, lemon juice, lemon peel, remaining 1/4 cup flour and remaining 3/4 cup sugar in medium bowl; carefully pour over chips and crust.     (This is a 9 inch pan, but the amount of lemon mixture barely covered the crust and the white chocolate chips.  Had I know, I would have used a smaller, 8 inch square pan in order to get a thicker bar.)

                                                                                

5. Bake 10 minutes or until set. Cool in pan on wire rack; sift with powdered sugar when completely cool. (These needed much more than 10 minutes to bake.  I think I left them in for closer to 20.) 

Even though I felt the lemon was too thin and the crust was too thick, they came out pretty tasty.  My husband, who just returned home from several weeks away ate about half of them, but they still weren't what I was looking for.  So I'll keep looking and hopefully find a keeper!

A Lovely Lunch-Russian Blini with Homemade Lemon Curd

Today's lunch came from a variety of inspiration.  My family used to live in Ukraine and I would take my son on long walks every Saturday morning once the snow had melted and the temperatures had risen (so, starting in about June!).  The end of our walks were always spent at the large park near our apartment, where there is a large playground, multiple kiosks and a Ukrainian restaurant.  Among the kiosks were a few that served traditional Russian blini .  Most weeks, we would stop for a mid-morning snack and each get a blin-mine usually apple filled (sometimes Nutella) and my son's would be plain (a 2 or 3 year old trying to eat a thin pancake with a filling is just a recipe for disaster).

Ukrainian Playground

Since leaving Ukraine, I miss our walks, I miss the park and I miss the blini!  So, yesterday, we had a nice day of sunshine here and went for an early morning walk.  We walked about 5 miles total (well, I did anyway.  Someone else rode in the stroller a good amount of time) and spent a few hours at the local park.  For the first time, I noticed the lack of even a common vending machine.  How boring!  And then I thought about it, I can't recall a park/playground here in the US that has any kind of "food" at the park. It made me sad :(  I sat there thinking how much I missed our Saturday morning ritual.

Fast forward to the evening and I finally had the time to make a recipe I had found online a few weeks ago at the Poor Girl Eats Well blog for homemade lemon curd.  I love her recipes because they are always so creative and ALWAYS inexpensive to prepare.  Not long after I saw the lemon curd recipe, my neighbor brought home a dozen lemons for me from someone at work with a lemon tree.  Jackpot!  Of course, life always interferes and I hadn't found the time yet to try it out.  Her recipe is for Meyer lemon curd, and to be quite honest, I had never even heard of a Meyer lemon.  I have no idea if my lemons are the Meyer variety or not, but I suspect not.  They look pretty much like the lemons I buy at the grocery store.  But they are still lemons, so I decided to try the recipe.

It came out AMAZING.  But what was I going to do with the large jar of lemon curd?  This afternoon I was trying to come up with a creative lunch for me and my son and remembered my blini craving from yesterday.  I thought, "Hey, I can MAKE blini."  I've done it plenty of times.  And so, lunch was born.  I made up a half batch of blini for us, mine filled with the lemon curd and his filled with strawberry jam (he has graduated to being able to eat a filled blin since our days in Ukraine.)  We added a little yogurt and had a lovely lunch!

Homemade Lemon Curd

6 large egg yolks
3/4 c Meyer lemon juice (like I mentioned, pretty sure my lemons are the regular variety)
1 t finely grated Meyer lemon zest
1 c sugar (I used the Splenda sugar blend)
1 stick of butter, cut into small cubes

Combine the egg yolks, juice, zest and sugar in a medium saucepan and whisk together until smooth (this will help avoid chunky bits of cooked egg yolk).  Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until the mixture coats the back of a spoon (about 8-9 minutes).  Remove from heat and stir in the butter, one cube at a time, making sure that the butter melts completely before adding the next piece. 

Pour the finished lemon curd into clean containers and either continue your usual canning process, or cover with a layer of plastic wrap that's been placed directly on the surface of the curd.


Blini-Russian or Ukrainian Pancakes (this recipe is for a half batch and makes about ten 6-inch blini) This recipe is adapted from one at Allrecipes.com

• 1 egg
• 1-1/2 teaspoons white sugar (again, I use Splenda blend)
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1-1/4 cups milk
• 1-1/2 teaspoons vegetable oil
• 1-1/2 teaspoons butter

In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, and salt. Mix in the flour, and then stir in the milk. Mix until smooth and well blended. The batter will be very thin.

Heat a griddle or skillet over medium heat. Lightly oil the pan or spray with cooking spray. Pour about 2 tablespoons of the batter, or as much as desired, into the pan. Tilt the pan to spread the batter out evenly. When the edges are crisp looking and the center appears dry, slide a spatula carefully under the blin. Flip, and cook for about 1 minute on the other side, or until lightly browned.

Remove blin to a plate. Stack the blini on top of each other. To serve, spread with desired filling, then fold in half, and in half again to form a triangle. 

Blini with homemade lemon curd filling