Lemon Bars? Not Quite! Lemon Cake By The Careless Cook

   

 

You see, I have a recipe for Lemon bars and really thought about sticking with it, but two reasons popped up:

 

First off, I am The Careless Cook, and careless means I couldn’t take a lot of time. But, with a little sleight of hand ‘Puff’ the problem dissolved.  

 

On we go! I was baking for lots of folks, and my recipe was for 15 Lemon Bars. Not nearly enough.

 

My careful thoughts pushed me away from Lemon Bars, using the same ingredients! Presto, a dandy Lemon Cake.  Same ingredients baked in a cake pan would feed forty in a lot less time.

 

Bingo!

 

Now you’re asking:  Would keeping the same ingredients change the taste?  I found that most of my Lemon Cake was gone faster than fat girls at a birthday party. I really say that. I meant faster than a person of substance.

 

A new concern popped up. Fewer hungry mouths than I’d expected. How ever the few pieces that were left, disappeared with the snaping of purses.

 

But maybe you don’t need to feed forty, or fill up purses. Easily done. Just cut the recipe in half, or bake it all and put the rest in the fridge and save it for when you invite guests for morning coffee, or cocktail hour. See what a problem solver the Careless Cook is!

 

EQUIPMENT

 

9 X 13 Pan

 

Use your Food Processor if it’s big enough.

 

I used a big bowl and a handheld mixer.

 

INGREDIENTS 

 

3 Cups flour (I use Italian flour from Amazon)

2/3 Cups powdered sugar

1/2 Teaspoon salt

12 Tablespoons butter

3 Tablespoons (or more) fresh lemon zest

3 Cups sugar

8 Eggs

 

A dash of vanilla 

1 Cup of fresh lemon juice (taste after mixing and add more if your tastebuds tell you)

 

FOR ICEING, optional:

 

1 Tablespoon butter, melted

A short quirt or two of fresh lemon juice

Enough powdered sugar to make it thicken when you brush it on the cake

 

INSTRUCTIONS – this will not take much time to blend everything together. 

 

HEAT oven to 350F

 

Line the baking pan with parchment paper (makes it easy to get the cake out of the pan)

 

Blend all the dry ingredients in a big bowl, then add the wet ingredients a little at a time, blending well.

 

Pour the thin cake dough into the parchment lined cake pan. To make the cake even, just slap the pan on the counter.

 

Bake for 35 min. Test by sticking a clean knife in the cake.  Bake another five minutes or more if you need to, but be careful. Mine only took about 35 to 40 min.

 

If you are going to make the icing, wait until the cake has cooled.

 

After I put on the icing, I put the whole cake in the fridge for a few minutes to let the icing solidify, then I took it out. 

 

Yes, I did test the results. Can’t take a chance on ruining my good name.  Then I tested the results again. You can’t be too careful.

 

Then I tested one more time with coffee…….but what the heck, I had a cocktail handy…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Simple Lemon and Walnut Cake by the Careless Cook

 

I readily admit you haven’t heard from the Careless Cook in a while. Make that a long while. Have a bunch of excuses. No. Not correct.  Only one. Poetry.  

 

I can hear my three faithful readers gurgling as they chug some of their beer and let the rest spill down their faded, stained t-shirts, mumbling: “Stop with the chatter! And gimmie me sump-ten ta eat! And make it good stuff! I ain’t waitin’ much longer!”

 

Ok, zip up your pants and follow this recipe, drunk or sober, as if you have a choice. Get your wife to help you with the big words.

 

Time to cut to the kitchen.

 

Simply a Lemon Walnut Cake that you can start stuffing in your mouth in 45 minutes.

 

Ingredients

 

1 cup white sugar

½ cup of butter, softened (I used 30 second in a microwave oven.)

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract (or one glug)

2 teaspoons baking powder, more of less 

¾ cup milk (I use oat milk)

1 tablespoon lemon zest – now is when your wife has to stop in

1 tablespoon lemon juice. (Maybe little more, because the Careless Cook just doesn’t care)

A good hand full of walnuts, crushed (I fold the nuts in a dishtowel and use a rolling pin to teach those nuts a lesson)

 

Very Simple Icing

 

3 tablespoons butter, melted

2 teaspoons lemon juice

3 heaping teaspoons powdered sugar

 

Stir well.

 

 

Getting’ it Done and Keepin’ it Simple

 

Oven to 350 deg F (175 deg C)

 

For baking, I used a well-greased 9 by 9 inch ceramic pan

 

Use a large mixing bowl and beat sugar and butter until fluffy. I used an electric hand mixer.

Then add eggs and vanilla, lemon zest and lemon juice. Use that mixer and really get it together!

 

Add the flour and baking powder. Use that hand mixer viciously.  

 

Add the nuts and do the same.

 

Then add the milk and do more damage. 

 

Drop it all in the 9 by 9 inch baking pan. Bake for 45 minutes. Top should be lightly brown, but still give it the knife test.

 

Make the icing and paint it on.  The first coating it will glisten. When it’s not so glistening, paint on some more and then some more of the same until all the icing is used. 

 

 

 

 

Ligurian Cuisine: Tarta di Limone

Mother’s Day is upon us.  Although my mother has passed on, she’s with me everyday, and especially every time I step in the kitchen.  Even as a small child, often I was right there by her side, stirring this or pouring that.  I knew cup and teaspoon and tablespoon measures before I could read. My mother also showed me how to measure spoonfuls by the open palm, that-looks-about-right method.  One of her specialties was Lemon cake.  Gracious, I can still taste that lemony flavor that permeated my childhood dreams.  I was a championship bowl licker.

So, when I got to Cinque Terre and found out we would be making Tarta di Lemone with our hostess, Daniella, I found myself convulsed with inner turmoil.  You know the feeling: this can’t be as good as my mother’s, but I have to be nice to my hostess.  No need to fret, and one check of Daniella’s recipe will tell you why.  My mother’s was made with real lemons and no shortcuts.  No cake mix. No lemon curd from a can, or squirts of lemon juice from a plastic bottle.  Ditto in Daniella’s kitchen!  With just the heavenly aroma, you can instantly tell a cake made with fresh ingredients. Oh, my goodness!

So let’s get back to Cinque Terre and the task at hand.  Tarta di Lemone.  A quick check of the recipe and ingredients tells the story.

This cake goes together like a dream…a dream of my mother’s kitchen!

Preheat oven to 325

baking time 50 minutes

In a small bowl mix together:

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

half tsp salt

In a small bowl mix together:

¼ cup yogurt (or milk)

1 tsp vanilla

In a medium bowl cream together: (I used a handheld, electric mixer)

1 stick butter (softened)

¾ cup sugar plus 2 T

zest of 2 lemons

Add 2 eggs one at a time and mix well after each.

Alternating, add the flour and yogurt mixtures to the butter/sugar mixture, then add 2 T fresh lemon juice.  (About one lemon’s worth)  Mix well.  You’ll have a light, fluffy batter.

Put the batter in a buttered/floured loaf pan and bake until a knife comes out clean.  Note: in my oven, the cake needed about seven minutes longer to bake. Let the cake cool 10 minutes then invert onto a rack. 

Slice the cake and pair it with berries and whipped cream.  And, don’t you dare use a can of pre-whipped cream…or sin of sins, Cool Fluff!

In this recipe, the cake’s deep lemon flavor isn’t overpowered by sugar and I like to keep it that way.  No icing.  Let the whipped cream and berries do their work of enhancing and adding depth to the flavor. Your only other job is to have a glass of milk close at hand…make that a quart!

Come on now!  Mother’s Day is only a day or two away!  Let’s be kind to our childhood memories!  Daniella sure helped me refresh mine!