Triple Lemon Cake with Raspberries

I love when I have a whole weekend with no plans and an excuse to bake a dessert (or four).  Last weekend our friends came over for dinner because they had just returned from a vacation in Europe.  They brought dinner because, no joke, I ended up making four desserts.  This cake was the prettiest and tasted great too.

It’s always good form for a dinner guest to bring a present, and our friends showed up with some great foodie gifts: a sqwisk and some sel gris (gray sea salt) from France.

Ok, back to the cake.  The triple lemon comes from zest in the cake, a lemon syrup that is brushed on the layers and lemon juice in the frosting.  The raspberries I found were huge and very sweet, so the tartness of the lemon was just right.  Although the recipe says the frosting is buttercream, it’s mostly cream cheese, which was fine with me because cream cheese frosting is foolproof and goes well with fruit.

Although this cake had layers and a fancy name (génoise), it was no sweat to put together.

It is a great dessert for summer entertaining because of the simple ingredients and impressive presentation.

Triple Lemon Génoise with Raspberries and Buttercream

adapted slightly from Cooking Light

For the Cake:

• Cooking spray
• 1 Tablespoon cake flour
• 2 Tablespoons butter
• 1 cup unsifted cake flour
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 4 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon rind

For the Buttercream

• 3 tablespoons butter, softened
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 (8 oz) block cream cheese, chilled
• 2 cups powdered sugar

Lemon Syrup

• 1/3 cup boiling water
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Remaining ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups fresh raspberries

1. Preheat oven to 375°. Coat a 9-inch springform pan with cooking spray, line bottom with parchment paper and then coat paper with cooking spray. Dust with the 1 tablespoon of cake flour. Set aside.
2. Cook butter in small sauce pan over medium heat until solids have separated and lightly browned (about 4 minutes). Cool.
3. Combine 1 cup flour with salt and sift together once.  Beat sugar, vanilla, and eggs with whisk attachment in a mixer at medium high speed until egg mixture falls in ribbons from beaters and holds its shape (7-15 minutes depending on mixer).  Stir in lemon rind.
4. Lightly spoon one-third of flour mixture onto egg mixture and quickly fold in.  Repeat twice with remaining flour.
5. Stir one cup of batter into cooled brown butter.  Gently fold butter mixture into remaining batter.  Pour batter into prepared pan and gently spread evenly.  Bake at 375° for 20 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.  Loosen sides of pan and turn out onto wire rack.  Carefully peel off parchment and cool completely.
6. To prepare frosting, beat butter and next three ingredients with paddle attachment in a mixer at medium speed until smooth.  Sift powdered sugar and then slowly add to butter mixture. Beat at low speed until blended.  Cover and chill until ready to use.
7. To prepare syrup, combine water and granulated sugar; stir until sugar dissolves.  Stir in lemon juice.
8. To assemble the cake, split the cake in half horizontally using a large serrated knife.  Place bottom layer, cut side up, on a platter lined with strips of parchment (this is to keep any mess off the platter, the strips are removed when the cake is finished).  Brush with half of lemon syrup.  Spread 3/4 cup frosting and arrange 3/4 cup raspberries (I had to split mine in half because they were very large) on bottom layer.  Top with second layer, cut side down, and brush with remaining syrup.  Spread remaining frosting over top and sides of cake (I always start with a thin layer of frosting to keep the crumbs in place).  Decorate cake with remaining raspberries.

Pan de Queso

Pan de Queso

Last week my younger brother was in town from New York.  We always get drunk have a great time together, and this visit was no different.

Sam has a beautiful Colombian/Ecuadorian girlfriend, and one afternoon he was talking about all this delicious food her mom cooks for him and the treats they pick up at a local Colombian bakery.  After hearing how delicious it all sounded, I just had to try my gringa hand at Colombian cooking.

We went to a Latin market and found everything we needed to make pan de queso, arepas and chicharron.  The pan de queso was amazing.  The rest of it, well, we couldn’t even swallow the chicharron, and cooking the arepas filled the house with smoke.

BUT the pan de queso was something especial.  It only had four ingredients, but the texture of these little rolls was unique.  The outside was firm and crisp but the inside had a fluffy, moist, and chewy feel to it.  When you bit down, the rolls seemed to deflate, but that only made it easier to eat 10 of them.

The two main ingredients are tapioca starch and queso fresco.  I had to find the tapioca starch at the specialty Latin market but am able to find queso fresco at the regular supermarket.  Queso fresco is a crumbly, salty cheese that is good on black beans and salads.  It doesn’t really melt so it’s most often used as a last minute topping or garnish.

Pan de Queso

From Andrea’s Recipes

1 cup yuca flour (tapioca starch)

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

2 large eggs

10 oz queso fresco, crumbled

milk (as needed)

1)    Grease a baking sheet or line it with parchment paper.

2)    Mix yuca flour and baking powder in the bowl of a food processor until combined.

3)    Add eggs and cheese and process until dough comes together in a ball.  Add more flour a tablespoon at a time if it seems too sticky, or add milk a teaspoon at a time if it seems too dry.

4)    Turn dough onto a floured surface and work with floured hands until it is in a smooth ball.  (The dough was very light and soft for me so it was pretty easy to manage.)

5)    Cut into four strips and then cut those strips into four pieces.  Roll each piece into a smooth ball and place on prepared baking sheet.

6)    Cover rolls with a dish towel and let rest in a warm spot for 30 minutes.

7)    While dough rests, preheat oven to 375° F

8)    Bake the rolls on the top oven rack for 20 min until golden brown.

Mother’s Day Brunch

Last weekend I cooked a low-key brunch for my mom, boyfriend and brother.  It was a beautiful day and we were able to eat out on the back deck.  My brother almost fell backwards off the deck and kicked the whole table over, but we needed a little excitement to wake us up.

It wasn’t hard to decide what to cook since smittenkitchen.com had amazing looking dishes posted last week.  The menu I chose was:

Homemade Poptarts

Spring Asparagus and Pancetta Hash

Fruit salad (berries, melon, and banana)

Bellinis

Mom has a beautiful kitchen and I love being able to go over to her house and cook there.  Unlike my kitchen, she actually has counters, drawers and a DISHWASHER!

Motu helped by laying right in the middle of the kitchen floor.

The Poptarts were so much fun!  I love making little things that look special.  The dough was easy to work with and I took the suggestion from smittenkitchen to make the left over crust pieces into cinnamon sugar snacks (just sprinkle the leftover cinnamon sugar over the pieces of dough and bake until golden).  I don’t think I’ll ever throw scraps of dough away again.

I filled these with blueberry jam and cinnamon brown sugar.  They were so flaky and the perfect size treats to go with the rest of the meal.

Asparagus, potatoes, pancetta, and an onion.

The only thing that could make that better was a fried egg on top.

The party was small and tasteful, just like the poptarts.

Raising Dough

A few weeks ago, I helped my mom with a fundraiser for Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL).  It was an upscale affair at a home in the Gainesville Country Club, meaning I probably shouldn’t have been there.  It was great to meet the senator, but it was even greater that there was unlimited wine.  I sipped on a Sauvignon Blanc that was crisp and perfect with the cheese plate and sweets.

Mom asked me to be in charge of the sweets for the afternoon so the first things I decided to make were Coconut Macaroons from America’s Best Recipe.

I have made these a few times before and they always turn out beautiful looking and have great flavor.  There are three kinds of coconut in the recipe, unsweetened, sweetened, and creme of coconut. The cookies come together quickly and dipping in chocolate is optional but highly recommended.

I also made the Golden Lemon Almond cake from Rose’s Heavenly Cakes.  I am glad that I am starting to try more recipes from this book.  Her exact weights and temperatures for ingredients – plus her charts and graphs – have intimidated me for a while, but this cake turned out very fresh tasting with an incredible soft texture.

All in all, I think the event was a big success.  A lot of money was raised, and a lot of calories were consumed.  Still, I don’t know what was more sugar-coated, Senator Nelson’s talking points or my macaroons.