Lemon Curd for Lemon Tarts - Gram LuVerne

My Gram LuVerne is the pastry master.  Not only does she make incredibly tender and flaky pastry but she also makes pie fillings to die for.  When my Dad feels like he hasn't had a dessert lately he starts asking for a pie, given what his mom produced I'm not surprised that this is his number one choice is pie.  Gram has modernized her lemon curd recipe and makes it in the microwave, but you could use a double boiler if you wanted to go old school.

I have plans to visit Gram and get a pastry making class from her because my pastry skills are akward and inept at best.  I won't be giving a pastry recipe here because I need some better instruction myself on how to make pastry before I start advising others, use your favourite short crust pastry or buy some ready made pastry or buy pre-baked pie/tart shells.

Line your tart cases with pastry and prick it all over with a fork to make lots and lots of holes, according to my Mom if you put enough holes in it you don't have to blind bake.  Bake it in a pre-heated oven at 400^F (205^C) for 8 - 10 minutes, until the edges are golden.  I want to take a minute to show off my tart cases, I bought them in an antique shop and they make impressively tall and very pretty tarts, although it is a labour of love to fold the pastry into all the little fluted edges.

Lemon Curd

In a microwave safe bowl (an ideal container is a very large pyrex measuring cup) whisk together
3/4 cup Granulated Sugar
3 Eggs
until fluffy, use an electric hand mixer, it will save your arm from falling off

Then mix in
1 tbsp grated Lemon Rind (zest)
1/2 cup Fresh Lemon Juice (2 - 4 lemons depending on their size)
2 tbsp soft butter
Microwave on high for 2 - 3 minutes depending on the wattage of your microwave (mine is wimpy).

Take it out and whisk it until smooth again.

Microwave on high again for 2 - 4 minutes or longer until it boils.

Whisk again until smooth, a really good whisking this time, then let it cool and thicken a bit in the bowl.

Once cool, pour it into your pie/tart shell(s), this will fill 9 of my very tall tarts, probably 12 regular tarts or a small pie.

If you want to make it a meringue pie, whisk together 2 - 3 egg whites, with 2 - 3 tbsp sugar and 1/4 tsp cream of tartar until it resembles fluffy clouds, dollop it onto your pie and brown the top in a very hot oven.  Gram's lazy meringue topping is to cover the tops with marshmallows and toast them in the oven - sorry Gram, giving away all your secrets!

It is a lusciously perfect balance between zingy sour and super sweet, you don't have to go looking for the flavour like with most lemon meringue pies. Don't limit it to just pie filling either, it can also be used as a decadent spread on bread or scones or be used to sandwich a layer cake together, and it will keep in a jar in the fridge for a week.

Yumm, just yumm!

Sugar Cookies - Mom

With my mom visiting, I decided it was time to re-enact a mommy-daughter memory scene, not quite the same without my sisters here, but it had to be done.  Having claimed my inheritance of some fragile and grubby looking cook books, I searched out the recipe for sugar cookies and started making the dough.  My memories of making sugar cookies are primarily of decorating them, I can remember once or twice getting to help cut out the cookies but I can see how this would have been frustrating in the extreme for Mom, so I'm not surprised that we came home to baked cookies and were allowed to 'help' ice them.

Sugar Cookies

Beat together until fluffy:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar

Then add in
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla

While mixing measure:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 salt
and sift together

Add the dry ingredients alternately with
3 tbsp milk
Do 3 turns of flour mix and 2 turns of milk, starting and ending with flour.

Once all mixed, wrap it in plastic and chill for at least an hour.

Pre-heat the oven to 375^F (190^C)

Roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thick and cut into shapes, try to get the shapes as close together as possible to get as many cookies from the rolling and transfer the cookies to an ungreased cookie sheet.





Two people cutting out the dough creates a lot of waste, one of us had to stop.
Gather the scraps and re-roll and cut again, then repeat but don't roll the dough more than 3 times - use a knife to cut the last rolling into shapes, or make one big plaque cookie.

Bake for 8 - 10 minutes, unless you have a fan assisted oven or rolled them slightly thinner than 1/4 inch (like me) in which case they could be done in only 5 minutes, they should have a light golden tint around the edges.

Once cool, they can be decorated.  Mom used to make a thick runny icing from just icing sugar and lemon juice with a bit of food colouring which we would smear onto the cookies with a knife then add sprinkles and silver balls.  At times we also got to use the icing squirter with some coloured butter cream icing (butter, icing sugar, and a few drops of water and food colouring, mixed to paste consistency) and pipe shapes to decorate.  Sadly, my cookie decorating skills have not improved much beyond the capabilities of a 7 year old, I think this may be genetic as Mom's skills are no better, but we had fun (when I wasn't snappy) and I now more than understand her frustrations when making sugar cookies.

A fluffy yellow bunny, a high-point in the decorating process (if you haven't seen coloured bunnies, please watch more cartoons).

A not so well dressed boy.

A grizzly bear that more closely resembles a morlock.

Flan Cake with Raspberries - From Mom

When I asked my family to help me with the list of recipes to include, my sister Allana came back with the warning that getting some of these recipes out of Mom was going to be difficult, reckoning that some of the things she baked are carefully guarded secrets. I brushed off that statement, nah my mommy wouldn't do that to me, she's sent me recipes in the past, yes they're full of spelling mistakes but it's easy to figure out, she's just bad at typing, she wouldn't sabotage my project.

Because it's unseasonably warm this autumn and there are still local British raspberries in stores, I thought I'd better make this cake up, otherwise I won't be able to afford it until next summer. I'm now starting to wonder if Allana was right, reading the email Mom sent of this recipe I realise that there are gaping holes in the method instructions, some quite significant like what temperature to set the oven to and how long to bake it! This cake fall into a catagory that I would call 'trophy baking' the kind of thing you make when you want to show off your skills, it's one of the recipes that only Mom baked and usually only on special occasions, and given how little praise she received for her cooking over the years, I might be understanding of why she wants to keep some baking secrets. However, my project is to share these recipes with my sisters so they don't disappear, the instructions below are tainted by my newly formed suspicions, it came out beautifully so whether my mistrust is valid or not I must have done something right.

This was a summer cake that Mom baked when we had company, she used a flan case that resulted in a thin sheet of cake that when turned out onto a plate had a raised fluted edge, she covered the top with raspberries that formed concentric circles to the centre and glazed the fruit so that it shined. The final result was a cake that could have sat in the window of a patisserie shop confident in it's ability to entice you away from chocolate eclairs and towering layered mousse cakes.

Other things missing from Mom's instructions, what did she make the glaze from and did she put some sort of barrier between the fruit and the cake to stop the cake going soggy, because when she upturned the flan she put the fruit next to the more porous side of the cake that baked against the tin, and she's at a school reunion this weekend so I can't even call her up to ask, score: Mom 1, Jenn 0.

It's a good thing that this recipe is small because my first attempt at batter had to go down the drain.  I might have curdled the eggs because the milk was too hot, or I might have put too much flour in on the first alternating turn, whatever I did it formed little knots that would take crazy beating to get rid of and result in a tough cake. Either way it didn't look anything like the very few times I witnessed the batter when this cake was going into the oven and I thought it best to not even put it in the pan  (somehow Mom managed to avoid an audience when baking this).

On a side note, this recipe must have made its way into Mom's repertoire before we had chickens because she included the comment 'you get a good sponge with only 2 eggs' and frankly once we had chickens rationing egg use in the summer wasn't an issue, rather the opposite. Officially this recipe is either called Lazy Daisy Cake or Hot Milk Sponge, and it is light and soft right out to the edges and delicate, and it really is a cake for grown ups.

Flan Cake with Raspberries

 

Pre-heat the oven to around 350^F or 180^C

 

Grease and flour a (probably) 11 inch round flan tin, or a 9 inch square cake pan (like I did if you don't have a flan tin).

 

In a small sauce pan on a low to medium setting, heat up:

1/2 cup milk

1 tbsp butter

1/2 tsp vanilla (because I don't believe for a second that Mom didn't add this)

do not let the milk scald, it should get hot but you should still be able to briefly stick your finger in it, don't let it form a skin on top or catch on the bottom

 

In a mixer beat until light and fluffy:

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

 

add the sugar slowly, a few spoonfuls at a time, it should take 10 minutes to add in all the sugar then leave it to beat for a few minutes more

 

In a separate bowl, mix together:

1 cup flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

 

Add the flour mix and the milk mix in alternating turns, starting and ending with flour, at least 4 turns of flour and 3 of milk. Pour the milk slowly and from a good height in a very thin stream to cool it down. Make sure that everything is mixed before switching between the two.

 

Scrape it all into your cake tin, it should be a very thin liquid-like batter.

 

Bake for around 16 - 18 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean, it is a thin cake so will be fast to bake. I set the timer for 20 minutes but took it out at 18, and that was a bit too long.

 

 

Once out of the oven, give it a few minutes to settle and come away from the sides then turn it out onto a cooling rack.  I've never had a cake so easily fall out of the pan, I didn't even have to run a knife round the sides.

Once cool, put it on a plate and arrange the raspberries like little mountain ranges on top, then pour over the glaze.  I put the top of the cake up because, like I said, I didn't know if I needed to use a barrier to avoid soaking the cake with the fruit or the glaze.

Glaze

I remember Mom pouring the glaze onto the fruit, and it must have had some sort of agent (possibly cornstarch) to make it cling thickly to the fruit.  I don't have her recipe so I had to find one, it's not the same, if I get hers I'll update.

In a small sauce pan, mix:
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp cornstarch (corn flour)

Then stir in until dissolved:
1/4 cup water
2 tbsp lemon juice
Run your finger round the inside of the pan above the water level to make sure you have all the sugar granules mixed in.

Bring it to a boil over medium heat and allow to boil for 1 minute, then set it aside to cool, do not stir once you start to heat it. 

I don't have much experience making glazes but I know that sugar always wants to return to its original state if disturbed while heating (so granulated sugar will go grainy in the finished product if stirred or more sugar is added, syrups will not harden, etc).

Once completely cool, pour the glaze evenly over the fruit - spoon it out if, like me, you don't trust your pouring but can't be bothered to brush it over the fruit.  If you have a flan tin so that your cake will have a little retaining wall to hold the glaze in, double or tripple the glaze recipe, so that you have a full layer of it coating your raspberries, mine just ran over the sides of the cake and under it so I had to stop.

Invite your friends round for a slice, watch them be impressed.

Score: Mom 1, Jenn 1 (I love my mommy, but she has some answers to give on this).

Stem Ginger Cookies

The previous recipe from Gram LuVerne was the starting point partly because she sent me some recently.  As a thank-you I sent her some of my ginger cookies back, and she asked for my recipe, so begging forgiveness for the almost immediate detour from the purpose of this blog, I figured that I might as well post that here too.  My recipe is for ice-box cookies made with crystallized stem ginger, easy to make and so easy to make look elegant and sophisticated.  I also sent some to my Dad (the recipe makes lots and Mom was acting as the courier, why not right?) and even though he isn't a fan of ginger, he really liked them, although that might have more to do with his perception of the infrequency in which baked goods appear in his life right now, sympathy is hard earned in our family.
Stem Ginger Cookies

Cream together in a mixer:

1 cup butter
1 cup white sugar

When fluffy, mix in:

1 egg

In a separate bowl, mix together:

2 2/3 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

When the wet ingredients are looking smooth again, reduce the speed of the mixer and add the dry ingredients, mix just until fully incorporated.

Then stir in:

3/4 cup of crystallized stem ginger (candied ginger)
     that has been chopped into 1 cm cubes

Shape into a brick (or log, or two) and wrap in baking paper and put in the freezer for at least 2 hours (it will keep in the freezer for up to 1 month but put it in a plastic bag if you're storing it for more than a day).

When you're ready to bake, pre-heat the oven to 375^F, or 190^C

Slice the brick into 1/2 cm cookies and place on a baking tray, leave a good amount of space between them, they grow!

Bake for 8 - 12 minutes, it really varies on how cold your freezer is and if you let the dough partially thaw before baking, but they're done when they're golden brown around the edges.

Ginger Snaps - from Gram LuVerne

It seems very appropriate to start an archive with a very traditional classic, since I love ginger and so does my Gram LuVerne, I thought the best one would be her recipe for Ginger Snaps. She got this recipe from her mother-in-law, my great-grandma Emilie Pierce, in 1941. There are no eggs in this recipe so the dough works a bit like shortbread, but dark molasses and quite a bit of ginger pack a great flavour punch and the aroma in my kitchen as they bake is heavenly. Gram sent me some of these a few weeks ago whem my mom came to visit, the flavour was rich and spicy, perfect for dunking in a cup of tea.

Pre-heat the oven to 350^F (176^C)

Combine in a mixer:

1 cup butter (or 1 cup margerine & 1 tbsp oil)

¾ cup white sugar

¾ cup dark molasses

Once fully mixed, add in:

1 tsp baking soda dissolved in 3tbsp boiling water

Sift together, then mix into the wet ingredients:

4 cups flour – 4 ½ to make a stiff dough for a cookie with a good snap!

2 tbsp of powdered ginger1 tsp each of cloves and cinnamon (but these are optional, Gram usually doesn’t use them and neither did I)

Roll the dough into round balls and press flat with the base of a cup dipped in sugar, Gram uses the bottom a small glass pitcher dipped sugar to make a pretty star design, I don’t own anything so fancy so used the bottom of a jam jar as it was the best I could find for some decorative effect that didn’t have a brand logo, country of origin mark or a recycle symbol. The dough can also be rolled out and cut into shapes for a very thin cookie or just dropped by the spoonful.

Bake for 8 – 10 minutes

Then make a cup of tea and enjoy.