Stuffed Lemon Cookies

 

Stuffed Lemon Cookies

Recipe: Ingredients:

• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened

• 1 cup granulated sugar

• 2 large eggs

• 2 teaspoons lemon extract

• 2 teaspoons lemon zest

• 3 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• Lemon curd or lemon filling of your choice

• Powdered sugar, for dusting (optional)

Instructions:

1. Preheat and Prepare: Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C). Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats.

2. Cream Butter and Sugar: In a large mixing bowl, cream together the softened butter and granulated sugar until light and fluffy.

3. Add Wet Ingredients: Beat in the eggs, one at a time, followed by the lemon extract and lemon zest. Mix until well combined.

4. Incorporate Dry Ingredients: In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, mixing until a smooth dough forms.

5. Form Dough Balls: Roll the dough into tablespoon-sized balls and place them onto the prepared baking sheets, leaving some space between each cookie.

6. Make Indentations: Use your thumb or the back of a spoon to make an indentation in the center of each dough ball. Fill each indentation with a small dollop of lemon curd or your preferred lemon filling.

7. Bake: Bake the cookies in the preheated oven for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges are lightly golden.

8. Cool and Serve: Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely. Dust with powdered sugar, if desired, before serving.

Lemon Curd

This may be a bit late but this lemon curd would make great Christmas presents and the presence of apples would help the lemons go further!

1 lb (16 oz) cooking apples, peeled, cored and sliced
1 lb (16 oz) caster sugar
grated rind and juice of 3 lemons
4 oz (1/2 C) butter
4 eggs, beaten and strained

Instructions

1. Cook apples without water over a very low heat until soft.  Then beat the cooked apple to a pulp.

2. Add the sugar, lemon rind and juice, butter and the eggs.

3. Stir continuously over a very low heat until the mixture thickens, about 20 to 30 minutes.  Do not let it boil.

4. Have read some warm, clean jars.

5. When thick, pour into jars, cover, seal and label.  Store in refrigerator.

Lemon Chicken

Lemon Chicken

Ingredients

• 3 juicy lemons
• 50g butter
• 3 tbsp clear honey
• leaves from 4 rosemary sprigs
• 1 garlic clove , finely chopped
• 8 chicken pieces, such as thighs and drumsticks, with skin
• 750g potatoes , peeled and cut into smallish chunks (You could also serve with rice!)

Serves 4
Easily doubled

Preparation and cooking times

Prep 5 - 10 mins
Cook 1 hr

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas 6/fan180C. Squeeze the juice from 2 lemons into a small pan and heat with the butter, honey, rosemary, garlic and salt and pepper, until the butter melts and it smells fragrant.
2. Lay the chicken in a roasting tin - don't pile it up or it won't cook so well. Add the potatoes and drizzle with lemon butter to coat evenly. Cut the third lemon into 8 wedges and tuck them in. (Can be made up to 2 hours ahead up to this point.)
3. Roast for 50 minutes - 1 hour until the chicken is cooked and the potatoes are crisp and golden. Serve with a green salad.

The lemon tart and madeleines

This afternoon, I finally got around to baking the lemon tart I gave the recipe for a while back. It was simple to make and wonderful to eat! I had intended making madeleines as well but I didn't like the recipe in the Paris Sweets book so I've found one from Rick Stein's French Odyssey.

3 medium eggs
100 g caster sugar
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
100 g plain flour (all purpose), sifted, plus extra for dusting
1 teaspoon (t) baking powder
100 g butter, melted, plus extra for greasing the tins

1. Brush 2 x 12 madeleine moulds with melted butter and set aside for a few minutes till the butter has set. Then dust with four, tapping out the excess.

2. Pre-heat the oven to 190 C.

3. Put the eggs and sugar into a large bowl and whisk with a hand-held electric mixer for 3 minutes until thick and moussey.

4. Whisk in the lemon zest.

5. Sift the plain flour and baking powder together, and gently fold in, followed by the melted butter and the honey.

6. Place the batter in the fridge and leave for 15 minutes to thicken slightly.

7. Fill each of the moulds three-quarters full with the mixture and bake for 10 minutes until puffed up and golden.

8. Leave to cool, then carefully remove from the tins.

A simple chicken dinner

I bought some chicken thighs from my butcher last weekend because I thought that I might make the lemon chicken again. They are quite inexpensive and I think, taste better. Here is what I did. It tasted very good so I thought that I should write it down.

Ingredients

1 or 2 small onions (or one large)
6 chicken thighs (2 or 3 people - add thighs accordingly)
1 lemon
1/2 C (4 oz) of dry white wine (not necessary but I had some left from another recipe - I buy 1/2 bottles for cooking)
1 or 2 chicken stock cubes and 1 cup of water (or chicken stock)
salt, pepper, Italian seasonings (whatever you enjoy most)
olive oil (or other)

1. Chop onion/s and gently fry them till they are soft. Don't allow to brown.
2. Remove chicken skins, dust thighs with seasoned flour and brown in frying pan with onions.
3. Once the chicken has been fried on each side, add the wine, and chicken stock (water + stock cubes).
4. Season and add lemon juice.
5. Turn down heat and gently simmer for 45 minutes to an hour.
6. You could add cream or crème fraiche to make a richer sauce.

I served this with mashed potatoes and carrots but you could have rice and any other vegetables.

If you wanted to serve 4 people, you would need 8 good sized thighs.

Lemon Posset

At the beginning of my obsession with lemons, I gave a recipe for lemon posset. I hadn't tried it but now I have! Great recipe and really not all that complicated.

Baked Lemon Cheesecake with summer berry compote

Ingredients (t = teaspoon, T = tablespoon)

For the base:
100 g butter, plus extra for greasing
200 g digestive biscuits (graham crackers?)
2 T caster or demerara sugar

For the filling:
500 g full-fat cream cheese
200 g caster sugar
3 medium eggs
2 T cornflour (corn starch)
300 ml crème fraîche
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon and 3 T juice

For the summer berry compote:
22g rasberries
50 g caster sugar
Finely grated zest of 1/2 orange
350 mixed summer berries (halved small strawberries, raspberries and blueberries)

Icing sugar, to serve

1. Lightly butter a 20 cm clip-sided tin and line the base with a piece of non-stick baking parchment or buttered greaseproof paper. Preheat the over to 150C.

2. Melt the butter in a pan over a low heat. Crust the biscuits into crumbs in a plastic bag, add to the butter along with the sugar and mix together well. Put into the tin, level out and press onto the base in an even layer with the back of a spoon. Set aside.

3. Beat the cream cheese and sugar together in a bowl until smooth. Add the eggs, on at a time, and beat well between each addition. Add the cornflour, crème fraîche, lemon zest and juice and beat once more.

4. Pour the mixture onto the base and bake in the centre of the oven for 50 minutes to 1 hour, or until just set but with still a slight wobble in the centre. Now turn off the oven but leave the cheesecake inside, and let it go cold.

5. For the summer berry compote, put the raspberries, sugar and orange zest into a bowl and crush with the back of a fork into a purée. Rub through a sieve into a clean bowl and stir in the summer berries. Chill until ready to serve.

6. To serve, carefully remove the cheesecake from its tin-you might need to run a round-bladed knife around the edge first-and transfer it to a serving plate. Dust the top with a little icing sugar and serve, cut into wedges, with the summer berry compote.

Lemons, a continuing theme!

I've just read an article in the Guardian by an English (?) journalist and the cooking lessons she is having with her French mother-in-law. (If you are interested, here is the link!) One of the dishes she learned how to make was a lemon tart. I had forgotten till reading about it, how much I love lemon tart, so here is a recipe from my French cook book. I haven't made it before and will endeavour to do so tomorrow!

Lemon Tart

Ingredients

1 partially baked 9-inch (24-cm) tart shell
1 average-sized lemon (about 4.5 ounces) rinsed and dried
1 1/2 cups (300 grams) sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch (corn flour in UK)
4 oz (1/4 lb or 115 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1. Partially bake the tart shell at 325 F (165 C).

2. Slice lemon into thin wedges, remove the seeds, and toss the lemon and sugar into the container of a blender or food processor. blend or process, scraping down the sides of the container as needed, until the lemon is thoroughly puréed and blended with the sugar, 1 to 2 minutes. Turn the mixture into a bowl and, using a whisk, gently stir in the whole egg and the yolk, followed by the cornstarch and melted butter. Pour the filling into the crust.

3. Bake the tart for 20 minutes. Increase the oven temperature to 350 F (180 C) and bake for another 15 to 20 minutes or until the filling is bubbling and lightly browned. Transfer tart to a cooking rack and let cool for at least 20 minutes before removing it from the pan.

Best served the same day it is baked!

(from Paris Sweets by Dorie Greenspan)

More on Lemons

I'm not sure why I'm so into lemons at the moment but they keep showing up in my life! Today, I came across a cookbook called 'Easy Cooking for one or two' in Oxfam and picked it up because it had some interesting recipes.

So here are some of the lemon recipes!

Lemonade

makes 1 pt

1 lemon
1 1/2 rounded teaspoons of caster sugar
1/2 pt of cold water

Method

1. Wash the lemon and thinly peel just the outer yellow part of the rind.

2. Put the rind in a glass jug.

3. Squeeze the lemon and add it to the rind in the jug.

4. Stir in the sugar and water.

5. Leave it overnight, covered, in the refrigerator.

6. The next day, stir it again and make up to about a pint with cold water but taste as you add so that you don't dilute it to much and loose the tangy flavor.

More to come!

Lemons

Though lemons can be expensive, they go a long way. I have two bags in my refrigerator at the moment (a 2 for 1 deal) and I use them a lot since discovering that they are good at slowing down the digestion of certain carbohydrates. I've become very attached to lemon and hot water, and just recently, lemon and mint tea. I was really pleased to find this recipe by Nigel Slater in the Observer Magazine (5.4.09) for Lemon posset. Emma and I were served it at Oxford last weekend and every once in a while I find it in Marks and Spencer's.

Makes: 4 small glasses

Ingredients

500 ml double cream
150 g caster sugar
75 ml lemon juice

1. Put the cream and caster sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Stir occasionally to dissolve the sugar.

2. Lower the heat and leave to bubble for 3 minutes. Stir occasionally.

3. Reduce the heat so that the mixture doesn't boil over. Let it boil enthusiastically for about 3 minutes more, stirring regularly.

4. Remove from the heat, stir in the lemon juice and leave to settle.

5. Put into glasses and refrigerate for a few hours.