I love my lemons.

Think about it – they’re so incredibly versatile that it’s almost a little bit suspicious.

Need to add a fresh ‘zing’ to your fish, potatoes or salad? Just squeeze over some fresh lemon juice.

Wanna stop your cut apple from going icky and brown? Rub the surface with a little fresh lemon.

Have a bit of a stinky issue in your refrigerator from someone forgetting that they’ve left a few whiting in there to ‘defrost overnight’ for three nights in a row? Throw some lemon in there (it works rather well with smells caused by other sources too)

Getting a tickle in your throat from an oncoming cold or yelling too much at the most recent football match (whether that be AFL OR soccer)? Dump a slice of fresh lemon in a cup of boiling water and let it work its magic.

Suffering from dandruff/acne/eczema/blackheads/freckles or wrinkles? Put some lemon on it! (Actually, please don’t – while lemon is fantastic, I’m not sure that rubbing a fresh lemon slice on dandruff is quite the best way to go about getting rid of it. I don’t endorse any of these beauty uses for lemon, but hey, if you’re that bored then I guess I can’t stop you…)

In fact, I love lemons so much that often my problem is not trying to use them all before they get manky, but rather HOW do I use them all and which of my favourite lemon recipes will grace my kitchen while others have to wait for another day.

Did I mention how much I love lemons?

One easy standby lemon recipe is lemon curd.

This, my friends, is some good shit.

You can keep eat it by the spoonful, it is DIVINE on a buttered bagel (trust me on this), you can use it to fill cakes and cupcakes and even sandwich butter cookies. It’s sweet and tart and sour and carries a massive lemon punch and is just one of those things that your fridge is probably a better place with than without.

Best of all? It takes nothing but lemon, sugar and eggs. Gluten-free and nut-free and the perfect thing for dessert time if you’re dealing with allergies Well, so long as you love lemon. But let’s be honest – what’s not to love?

Lemon Curd

Ingredients
3 lemons
200g caster sugar
3 large organic eggs
120g unsalted butter, diced

1. Zest the lemons, then juice them (leaving out all the pips and bits) and combine with the zest.

2. Lightly beat together the eggs then run through a fine sieve. This is necessary to make sure the curd cooks evenly and reduces the chances of getting big chunks of egg in your curd as it cooks.

3. Combine the strained egg with the lemon zest, lemon juice and sugar in a large heat-proof bowl. Prepare a separate bowl with iced water and set aside.

4. Bring a pot of water to a low simmer, then place the bowl with the lemon mixture on top and stir continuously till it thickens considerably and coats the sides of the bowl and the back of the spoon. This should take about 20-30 minutes.

5. As soon the curd is cooked, remove it from on top of the pot and place it on top of the iced water while stirring continuously for another 5-10 minutes. Add the butter, once piece at a time and stir vigorously till it is all incorporated.

6. Store in a clean, airtight container for up to 2 weeks in the fridge and enjoy however you’d like!

As wonderful as lemon curd is, you know there is something that (to me) is just a step better!

LEMON CREAM.

Lemon cream is simply a combination of lemon curd and cream in a ratio of 1:3, whipped together till it stiffens up and takes on a lovely pale color like in the above picture.

I find that the cream doesn’t detract from the lemony flavour at all, oh no. In fact, what it does is that it retains the sparkling citrus punch but carries it in a better texture – one that is airy and smooth, almost like a creamy mousse.

And this, my friends, is the ultimate lemon filling.

The texture is too good to be described. Lemon curd is pretty smooth and silky, but there is some sticky and gooeyness to it that is hard for some people to get past. Once it’s combined with cream, it just becomes this light-as-air mixture that dissipates on the tongue and melts into nothing but the essensce of lemon.

And by now, we all agree that this is a good thing.

Right?

Right.

These lemon tartelettes are something that can be prepared in advance for quick and easy assembly just before being served, but can also be made 2 to 3 days in advance and just stored in the fridge in an airtight container. Though, as a responsible food blogger, I probably should warn you that the inherent danger in taking the latter path is that you may find yourself sneaking a tartlette whenever you walk past the fridge. Or two. Or three.

Not that I succumb to this at all.

Of course not.

Shut up, thighs.

Cute Lemon Tartelettes

Crust
120g unsalted butter
1/4 cup caster sugar
Pinch of salt
3/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose/plain flour

Filling
1/3 cup lemon curd
2/3 cup thickened or double cream

Decoration suggestions
Fresh berries
Chopped roasted nuts (pistachios are a favourite)
Candied lemon zest

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C, then place all the ingredients for the crust into a food processor and blitz till just combined. If doing this by hand, whisk together the flour, sugar and salt and set aside. Beat together the butter and vanilla, then combine with the flour mixture.

2. Lightly butter and flour your tart cases (silicone mini muffin trays are GREAT for making tiny little tartelettes!), then press the pastry into each case in a thin, uniform layer. This is a veeeeery crumbly shortcrust so don’t even think about rolling it out and laying it into pastry cases the traditional wait.

3. Using rice / beans / pastry weights, blind bake your pastry for approx 30 minutes, or till golden (the time will differ according to the size of the pastry so it’s a good idea to check it every 10 minutes.

4. While the pastry is baking, whip together the lemon curd and cream till the mixture has approximately tripled in size and is fluffy and very pale yellow. Cover with plastic wrap to prevent the surface from drying out, then store in the fridge.

5. Once the pastry is cooked, remove to a wire rack and cool completely. The pastry cases can be stored in an airtight container for up to a week without being filled. Or, once they’ve cooled down, you can fill them with the lemon cream and decorations of choice and serve immediately!

Other lemon recipes you might be interested in:

• Lemon slices
• Lemon cupcakes
• Lemon & Poppyseed Pound Cake
• Lemon tart

There’s only one thing that causes me to have actual pangs of agony from the deep, deep desire in me to have it all.

Seasonal fruit.

In summer, I roll gleefully in the season’s bounty – mountains of mangoes, piles of peaches, walls of watermelon, baskets of berries…eeeeeh, you get the drift. However, despite the bevvy of goodness, there is a part of me inside which whimpers for crisp autumn apples, pale yellow quinces and ruby red rhubarb.

Of course, I indulge and appreciate summer fruit when it’s here, but in that first month of autumn when the changing of seasons is followed by the change of seasonal stock, my overwhelming glee is pretty clear as I bounce and skip my way through the aisles at the local markets and independent grocers.

And then, rather predictably, the moment passes, and I’m buried up to my eyeballs in apples, reading food blogs from across the equator and jealously eyeballing their recipes for blueberry pies, mango tortes and watermelon sorbet.

It’s okay though, the berries will be here soon enough. In the meantime, I’ll keep myself focused on using up the sacks of apples we bring home from the local orchard, in dishes such as these apple & cinnamon pancakes!

Apple & Cinnamon Pancakes

Ingredients
4 tbsp sugar
1 egg
1 cup self-raising flour
3/4 cup milk
1/4 tsp bicarb soda
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 pink lady apples (or sub any other tart cooking apple), peeled, cored and quartered

Ingredients (when using gluten free pancake mixture)
1 pack Vitarium Gluten-Free pancake mix
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 pink lady apples (or sub any other tart cooking apple), peeled, cored and quartered

Whipped cream, fresh fruit and maple syrup, to serve

1. Whisk together all the ingredients except for the apple, till you have a smooth batter. Take each apple quarter and slice lengthwise into slices no thicker than about 2-3mm (you want to be very careful here, do not sacrifice a finger for the sake of thin apple slices!)

2. Heat up some butter or olive oil in a cast iron griddle or frying pan (a non-stick frypan will suffice) over a low-medium flame, then place 1/2 cup pancake batter on the heated pan and decorate with apple slices to form a flower shape. Once the bottom has cooked and is golden brown, carefully flip over to the apple side (try not to dislodge any of the apple slices) and fry till the apple is cooked and golden brown with caramelization.

These pancakes are very fluffy and taste very much like an apple and cinnamon teacake, except in pancake form. This being the case, they are absolutely best if served with some cream or ice cream! Don’t be mean with the maple syrup either – sure, the pancakes are pretty sweet as is, but it really helps to make this a pretty special breakfast dish

[tags]Apples, Autumn, Pancakes[/tags]

A good chocolate cake recipe is absolutely invaluable – it is the easiest flavour to turn to when making a cake to be enjoyed by a number of people with different tastes. You could say that chocolate is something that brings most people together.

My standard chocolate cake recipe is fantastic – easy to make, easy to store, and tastes better with age…but there’s just one problem. It’s such a tender and delicate cake that decorating it in any way other than a chocolate ganache glaze means that it falls apart. It certainly can’t be split and filled nor covered with a fondant.

As a friend had asked for a decorated chocolate cake for her birthday, this meant that the hunt was on. The hunt for a chocolate cake which was just as intense and delightful as my standard turn-to recipe, but that was a bit sturdier so it could handle a little knife work.

You know, there are A LOT of chocolate cake recipes out there. Not even looking at the internet, at last count I had a combined total of over 60 chocolate cake recipes from my cookbooks. Now, I don’t have quite enough cookbooks to fill a book store (actually only half a bookshelf full!), but this does give you an idea of the diversity when it comes to chocolate cakes.

Which to choose, which to choose?

I ended up making a short list of recipes on the basis of authors, reputations and ingredients. I knew I wanted something that tasted similar to my usual chocolate cake so steered clear of any recipes calling for something a bit different such as grated potato or zucchini. I’m not saying that these would be bad recipes, but I wanted to err on the side of caution for this search.

After I tried about 4 different recipes, I struck gold with this one. It has a wonderfully delicate crumb and is nice and moist, yet it’s sturdy and dense enough to be split into thin layers (I generally tend to go with 1cm thin layers, though this does need the cake to be refrigerated), filled with whatever you like and iced/decorated however your fancy takes you.

It does require more time and effort than my usual recipe of choice, but considering the flavour and versatility of this recipe, I’m calling this the perfect chocolate cake recipe.

Serve it as is or get fancy and fill it with white chocolate mousse and strawberries, it’s a fantastic addition to your baking repertoire!

Perfect Chocolate Mud Cake
(from The home guide to cake decorating by Jane Price)

Ingredients
220 g unsalted butter
220 g good quality dark chocolate
6 tsp instant coffee granules
160 mL water
125g self-raising flour
125g plain flour
50g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
480 g caster sugar
4 large eggs
7 tsp vegetable oil
110 mL buttermilk

1 x 22cm round cake tin / 20cm square cake tin

1. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C, then put the butter, chocolate, coffee and water in a pan and stir over low heat till melted. Remove from heat.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flours, cocoa, caster sugar and bicarb soda and make a well in the middle.

2. Whisk together the eggs, oil and buttermilk in a separate bowl till combined.

3. Pour the cooled chocolate mixture into the egg mixture and carefully whisk to combine.

4. Grease and line your cake tin with non-stick baking paper, making sure the collar for the sides extends 2cm above the cake tin. Slowly pour the chocolate mixture into the well in the flour mixture.

5. Mix well to combine, then carefully pour into the lined cake tin. Bake for 1 hour 45 minutes, or till a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Leave the cake in the tin till completely cooled.

This makes quite a tall cake perfect for being split into layers for decorating, but you can also bake this as a loaf or even cupcakes. Personally, I like to make mini cakes which make it easy to cover in a dark chocolate ganache, offset with a drizzle of white chocolate for colour and contrast

[tags]chocolate, cake, dessert[/tags]

It looks quite a treat, doesn’t it?

A rich, unctuous pasta bake plated next to a side of blanched & seasoned spinach.

However, if there’s one rule in life which is generally a good one to bear in mind, it’s that looks can be very, very deceiving.

There is nothing extravagant or unique about this dish. It’s not going to win any competitions for looks or flavours, but it is a simple, homely comforting food that is perfect for our current Melbourne winters.

This is the kind of dinner that you make to feed a family of 4 when the budget is stretched a little thin, the weather is cold outside and you want something hearty and filling that will satisfy both the tastebuds as well as the wallet.

Beef & Mushroom Ragu Pasta Bake

Ingredients
1/2 onion
2 sticks celery
2-3 cloves garlic, finely sliced
250g mushrooms
500g beef mince
2 tbsp reduced salt tomato paste
1 x 400g tin crushed tomatoes
250mL red wine (can be replaced with beef stock)
1 tsp dried oregano

Salt & pepper, to taste
2 cups barely cooked pasta (go with a penne or fusilli to catch the sauce) – you want it al dente or a little less cooked than that!
1/2 cup freshly grated mozarella
1/4 cup pine nuts

1. Dice your onion and celery into uniform pieces and also clean and dice the mushroom into larger pieces (as mushroom shrinks as it cooks). Heat up a little olive oil in a deep frying pan and saute the celery, onion and garlic till the onion is softened and translucent. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C.

2. Add the mince and cook together, breaking up any clumps that form. Once the beef mince is cooked through, add the mushroom and stir through till the mushroom has cooked.

3. Add the tomato paste and stir it through, then add the crushed tomatoes and wine or stock and bring it to a slow simmer for about 20-30 minutes, or till the liquid is reduced and thickened. Make sure to give the mixture a stir every now and then so nothing catches and burns on the bottom.

4. Pour half the sauce into a large 20cm x 30cm baking tray (or roughly equivalent size, it doesn’t make a great deal of difference), then layer the pasta in the middle.

6. Add the remaining pasta sauce on top then gently mix it all together.

5. Add your grated mozarella over the top, then scatter over the pine nuts. Place into the oven and bake for 30 minutes, then serve immediately with a side of bitter greens.

Unfortunately this is not one of those dishes that freezes well, but I have found that it will generously serve a family of 4 with one or two serves left over (depending on how voracious your diners are). And those leftover serves tend to disappear pretty quickly, so the lack of freezing shouldn’t deter you from trying this out for your family!

Unfortunately all I had on me the day I made this was lots of spinach, but lightly sauteed in some garlic-infused olive oil, it was a lovely green and homely side dish to this rather lovely pasta bake.

People often avoid various foods for any number of reasons. For example, my kid sister sat at the dinner table tonight, very carefully corralling the rather chunkily cut mushrooms to the side of her dish in anticipation of relocating them to another dish where they might be more happily welcomed.

Personally, I used to loathe the smell of celery so much that I would leave the room if I suspected it had been in the vicinity (thankfully, celery and I have now reconciled our differences and manage to coexist fairly well these days).

However, people with coeliac disease have no choice but to avoid consuming any products with gluten in them at all, which means that they have a very difficult time with cooking and eating as every label must be scrutinized. And unfortunately, majority of the gluten-free desserts that I’ve seen tend to be limited to meringues, flourless orange and almond cakes or flourless chocolate cakes.

Since coeliac disease is incurable, the idea of being limited to three desserts for a lifetime does make the sweet tooth weep. Just a little.

When I was contacted by the reps for Vitarium, who asked me whether I would be interested in trialling their product and perhaps coming up with a recipe, I jumped at the chance. Having watched a friend who suffers from coeliac disease struggle with her shopping and eating, I thought that I might as well try the product and see whether it would be one I could recommend to her.

I wasn’t quite daring enough to use a gluten-free flour to make something that requires gluten for texture, but I thought it would work quite well on a buttery, short pastry…somewhere where the development of gluten is usually kept to a minimum.

I decided to go with a tarte tatin as other than the pastry, it is relatively easy to ensure that the other ingredients and components of this dish are gluten free and coeliac friendly. Gluten free flour isn’t a necessity, but after trying it out, I can honestly say that it performed perfectly and made the most beautiful, tender, melt-in-the-mouth pastry you can ask for!

Tarte tatin with sour cream shortcrust pastry

Pastry ingredients
250g plain / all-purpose flour
200g unsalted butter, diced & cold
150g full fat sour cream

Tarte Tatin ingredients
6-10 apples (depending on the size of your pan, and golden delicious apples work well here)
150g unsalted butter
200g caster sugar
1 vanilla pod, split in half
1 sheet sour cream short crust pastry, rolled 3-4mm thick
22 – 25cm oven-proof frying pan

TO MAKE THE PASTRY:

1. Place the flour into a food processor with the butter and pulse till the mixture begins to form lumps.

2. Add the sour cream and pulse till the mixture comes together (this is a very buttery, extremely difficult to handle pastry. Try to avoid handling it with bare hands as much as possible).

3. Using a silicone spatula, scrape the pastry out of the food processor and onto a sheet of non-stick baking paper. Lay another sheet of baking paper on top of it, then slowly and carefully roll out to approx 3-4mm thick. Place in the fridge to chill and rest till needed.

TO MAKE THE TARTE TATIN:

1. Peel the apples, then cut into quarters and remove the core. If you feel it’s necessary, you can toss them with lemon juice at this stage to stop them browning…but bear in mind that this is a dish where the apples are cooked in brown caramel. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.

2. Scrape out the vanilla seeds from the pod and add to a heavy, oven-proof frying pan along with the butter and sugar, and cook till it becomes a lovely amber caramel.

3. Once the caramel is bubbling and light brown, remove immediately from heat and carefully arrange the apples over the top, core sides down. You want to make sure that the first layer is rather neat and tidy, as this will be the face that is on display. The second layer can be as haphazard as you wish!

4. Grab a plate which is slightly larger than your frying pan and use it as a guide to cut a rough circle from the chilled pastry, then place on top of the apples and tuck the edges around inside so they surround the apples. Cut a few steam vents into the pastry, then place into the oven and bake till the pastry is completely cooked and you can see the caramel bubbling up the sides.

Rest the baked tarte tatin in the pan for about 15-20 minutes, before CAREFULLY inverting onto a plate (taking care not to drop any of the boiling hot caramel on yourself!). Serve with a dollop of creme fraiche…or sour cream…or lightly whipped double cream…or natural yoghurt…or vanilla ice cream. Your choice

Vitarium are running a gluten-free bakeoff until August 8th, so check this link if you’d like to enter Vitarium are also offering to let 5 Kitchen Wench readers try their products, so if you live in Australia and would like to give their products a try for free then please leave a comment. 5 readers will be drawn by Sunday 18th July so you have plenty of time!