Spring Lemon Cake

Posted on 12/03/2019 by Anna

I can’t tell you how many lemons have been squeezed and cakes made here in the name of research. Lemon drizzles, lemon curds, lemon polentas and of course there is the layered beauty that features here in Lemon Cake and the 1970’s (May 2013) and often graces our table as our Easter Cake*.

I’m happy to eat a lemon based cake any day of the year but in Spring it seems even more appropriate. That bright yellow zip and zest works perfectly when there is still a nip in the air but green shoots are on show and the hope of sunny days feels well founded. This then is a cake for teatime, picnics or rainy days, trips to the beach, eating outside or in front of the fire and, of course, for all those school bake sales.

This modest looking little loaf cake has been tried and tested in many incarnations and this is my favourite. It couldn’t be easier, is very quick and a doddle if you have children who want to make a cake. If you don’t have any lemon curd don’t worry it will still be delicious but it’s worth having a jar of good curd in the fridge for such occasions. You can stick with a crunchy sugar and lemon drizzle if you prefer but this lemony icing is our perfect topping. Finally, whilst I am a huge fan of butter, it has become quite expensive and Stork or similar works brilliantly here – if its good enough for Mary Berry, its certainly good enough for me!

Spring Lemon Cake

160g butter or Stork (see introduction)

120g caster sugar

Good pinch of salt

2 large eggs

140g self raising flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Zest of one large unwaxed lemon

2 tablespoons milk

2 tablespoons lemon curd (see introduction)

150g icing sugar

Juice of 1/2 – 1 lemon

Preheat the oven to 180 and line a loaf tin. Cream the butter or Stork and sugar together until light and fluffy, I use a stand mixer for this but a wooden spoon and bowl work a treat too. Add the eggs one at a time with a spoonful of flour until well incorporated and then add the remaining flour, salt, baking powder, zest and milk. Finally swirl in the lemon curd leaving a few streaks. Put the mix into the lined tin and bake for 40 minutes. Check after 30 and cover with foil if its brown on top before a skewer comes out clean. Whilst the cake is cooling, mix the icing sugar and lemon juice (add the juice slowly as you may not need it all) and then pour over the top of the cake. Leave to set and then tuck in.

*Whilst I know a Simnel Cake is the usual Easter offering and I love it, none of my immediate family like fruit cake (also my daughter is allergic to nuts). Besides, we all know what happens to a cake when only one person likes it……

Cannellini Bean, Parsley and Lemon….dip

Posted on 16/04/2015 by Anna

Now I will be frank and say I am a little nervous about the title of this – if my children were reading (having not previously tasted and devoured it as they do) I am pretty sure they would move on, pulses not being much to their liking.

For me, I struggle with the word dip, it is just a bit…. you know. Dip covers a multitude and can be a tub of generic supermarket gunk or a red, oniony side dish to uh, dip things in. Rarely have I come across anything with the moniker dip that I have wanted to love or, in many cases, finish. This little beauty will, I hope, shatter all preconceptions.

It came about, as many things do out of my kitchen, from necessity over organisation. I wanted something to offer with drinks but frankly the larder was pretty bare but for a few tins of beans. I always have parsley, lemon and garlic on hand and so it was that these were the volunteers, the ingredients that stepped forward from a skeleton line up.

I actually made this three times over Easter, once to serve with said drinks and twice to put on the table along with a mezze type picnic lunch. With some toasty baked pita my children scoffed this with unseemly speed and didn’t even stop when they discovered the star ingredient. I could not believe my eyes at this nor my ears when they asked me to make it again. Today we are having it with some roast chicken, new potatoes and a big salad. It is really good, beyond easy and properly useful of have up your sleeve, but what are we going to call it?

Cannellini Bean, Parsley and Lemon Dip

Taste this when it is all whizzed together, it should have lots of lemon juice to give it zing and you will need a really good pinch of salt, possible two as pulses seem to lap them up. Serve with chopped carrots, baked pita bread, breadsticks or alongside a roast chicken or with a collection of other mezze type dishes.

1 can of cannellini beans

1 small clove garlic

Half a small packet parsley, approx 20g

Juice of 1 large lemon

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper

Put all the ingredients into a small blender or a jug if you are using a hand held blender. I find it easiest to put the lemon juice in first then you can pick any rogue seeds out easily, followed by the salt so it can dissolve in the juice. The order doesn’t really matter though. Whizz it all up, taste and check you are happy with it before decanting into a dish. The four of us will polish this off between but that said, my husband and I could probably eat it all too. You can double or treble easily if you have a crowd to feed.

Chicken with Chorizo, Parsley and Lemon

Posted on 04/03/2015 by Anna

It is a funny time of year. Yesterday I got caught in a hailstorm whereas today there is a definite whiff of Spring in the air. Primroses are nudging snowdrops out of the way, lambs are bouncing and I am tempted to put washing out on the line. Rather as fashion magazines talk of that tricky between seasons time, what to wear, what to wear? So in the kitchen we can feel caught on the hop. Rich, hearty, belt loosening stews feel a little de trop now but salady lunches are still a way off. Winter veg remains on offer and the bounty of Spring produce is yet to appear.

This then is the answer. An unbelievably easy, one pot wonder that is both cooked and served in the same pan (less washing up, marvellous) and doesn’t require any hard to find or particularly seasonal ingredients. Indeed, if like me you tend to keep chorizo in the fridge, then you may well have all the necessary to hand. This will serve you well for lunch or supper and is just the ticket if you have friends over for dinner as it will tick along in the oven quite happily whilst you sit with a glass of something chilled. You don’t really need to serve anything with it but my favourite green salad (January 2014 without the croutons I think) would be a verdant, refreshing side dish if you want.

For pudding I can’t think of anything better than Vanilla Pannacotta (July 2014) but instead of the summer blackcurrants in that recipe serve it with some baked rhubarb. I made this last week for a girls lunch and was delighted with the combination, both creamy and refreshing, perfect for Spring – see the photograph at the bottom.

Chicken with Chorizo, Parsley and Lemon

I serve this alongside a bowl of yogurt that has a little finely chopped garlic and salt added, it works an absolute treat with the chickpeas. By the way, if chickpeas are really not your thing (ahem Miss and Master May) then omit them and serve with waxy little new potatoes which will be equally fabulous. Incidentally don’t scrimp on the parsley, it is very much part of the dish and not just a garnish!

1 red onion

100g chorizo, sliced into discs

4 chicken thighs

1 clove garlic

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 lemon, halved

1 tin of chickpeas

1 small packet parsley, chopped

Plain yogurt to serve, see introduction

Preheat the oven to 200. Peel and cut the onion into eighths and put into a large roasting pan with the oil, chorizo, chicken and garlic and turn it all over in the oil. Season with salt and put in the oven for 30 minutes. After this time take the pan out, baste the chicken, add the chickpeas and squeeze both lemon halves over it all and put these halves in the pan too. Cook for a further 10 minutes, remove from the oven. Sprinkle with the parsley and serve. This amount serves two but it is easily doubled or tripled.

Vanilla Pannacotta with Rhubarb

Lemon and Lime Ice Cream

Posted on 27/05/2014 by Anna

When I was about seven or eight I went to visit family on Martha’s Vineyard. There were many memorable things about that holiday, the amazing round house my cousins slept in, the garden which led straight onto the beach, the horseshoe crabs, fresh limes. One of the clearest however is of our daily visit to Edgartown to have an ice cream. The same place everyday and for me the same flavour, pistachio. Isn’t that crazy that an ice cream (or many) nearly 40 years ago should still be such a vivid picture in my mind.

More prosaically I can still remember my first Cornetto, the exoticism of it and the chance that I would disappear from our Yorkshire garden and reappear in a Venetian gondola. Those were the days when you bought tubs of plain vanilla or perhaps for a treat, Neopolitan. No salted caramel or Phish food graced the shelves in those days.

Ice cream then is a treat and never more so than when you make it yourself. The flavours are all the clearer when the fruit goes from punnet to freezer in a matter of minutes. Better than this you know exactly what has gone into your mix – as children we were convinced ice cream was made from whale blubber, not a tempting thought although it never stopped us scoffing it. By the way, were you ever told that the ice cream van only plays music when it has run out of ice creams and ice lollies….?

This is a fabulously zingy and tangy ice cream, super fresh from the citrus and without the need of a custard. It is made, I promise you, in hardly and time and is very easy. My daughter made the ice cream in the photographs and it is delicious, well done Minty.

Lemon and Lime Ice Cream

1 large lemon

2 limes

120g caster sugar

400ml whipping cream

Put the zest and juice from the lemon and both limes in a bowl add the sugar and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Pour the cream into this mixture and put the bowl into the fridge until cold. When fully chilled pour into an ice cream machine and churn until thick and frozen, transfer to a plastic box with a lid and put into the freezer to firm up a little more. Take it out of the freezer 15 minutes before you want to eat it. Serves 4.

If you don’t have an ice cream machine, put the chilled mixture into the plastic box and freeze. Every couple of hours remove from the freezer, mix thoroughly then freeze again until smooth and frozen.

Lemon Posset

Posted on 20/03/2014 by Anna

Out for a walk one morning last week there were signs of Spring everywhere. Catkins and pussy willow, primroses, tiny wobbly lambs, the first shoots heralding the wild garlic and even some weeny tadpoles. There is still a nip in the air, the sort that whilst fresh and invigorating to breathe in still makes you wish you’d worn a hat. Anyway, it was glorious to be out and about and it got me thinking about lemons. Of course, lemons.

Now I know that however good the Spring weather here we are unlikely to be surrounded by lemon groves anytime soon but there is something about their zesty, fresh sharpness than is perfect for Spring. Awakening tired tastebuds which have been spoilt with rich stews and hearty puddings and paving the way for the abundance of crisp, green salad leaves that is Summer.

I must confess to always having lemons in the larder, I know we don’t grow them here but they are an essential in my kitchen and barely a day goes by without the squeezing of a lemon.

This pudding then is the very essence of Spring. Retaining a little richness to bolster against the cold but with enough zip and zing to put a spring in your step. Unbelievably easy, simply a combination of three ingredients which, through some culinary alchemy produce this creamy treat. I like to serve it with some little crisp biscuits, perhaps the vanilla ones in Biscuits du Jour (November 2012). These possets would make a great pud after last weeks’ Chicken with Peppers and Onions, and what an easy supper that would be.

Lemon Possets

450ml double cream

100g golden caster sugar

Juice of 2 lemons

Put the cream and sugar into a pan. Heat to dissolve the sugar and bring to the boil, simmer gently for 3 minutes, add the lemon juice stir well, then pour into 6 x 100ml ramekins or glasses and leave to set. Serve with crunchy little biscuits.

By the way these are neither too rich nor too sharp for children, my two hovered around whilst I was taking these pictures and happily scoffed one each.

Fresh Herb Sauce

Posted on 10/07/2013 by Anna

I cannot rave enough about this sauce – it is simply beyond useful and thoroughly delicious.

We have it with grilled or roast chicken and I wouldn’t contemplate a barbecue without it. Smoky charred chicken wrapped in a soft flatbread with this fresh herby sauce is a lunch supreme (see Summer Lunch Part 1 last week). With roast lamb I add mint to the parsley base and it becomes a modern twist on a traditional mint sauce. With some marjoram or oregano and a pinch of chilli flakes it is the perfect accompaniment to a steak which makes sense as it is a simplified version of an Argentinian chimmichurri.

You can fiddle around with the ingredients to suit your taste, change the herbs as suggested above, add more garlic (or less), substitute lemon juice for the vinegar if you prefer. Really it is up to you, the only thing I would urge is that you try it.

Green Herb Sauce

1 bunch parsley (around 30-40 grams)

6 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1 clove garlic, chopped

1 teaspoon sugar

1 pinch of salt

1 pinch of dried chilli flakes (optional)

Put all the ingredients into a jug and blend with a hand held blender. Alternatively blend in a liquidiser. Taste and adjust, you may need a splash more vinegar or a pinch more salt or sugar. Enough for 4.

Anna May, everyday…

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