Lemon and Poppy seed mini olive loaf

Here is a quick recipe of a very quick bake- I have made this several times now and it has come out well every time. This is super delicious, fluffy and no butter –only olive oil tea time cake!
This recipe makes 6 mini loaves or one big standard sized loaf.

(Adapted from susaneatlondon.com)

Ingredients

200 g plain flour
40 g ground almond
270 g caster sugar
4 eggs
130 ml olive oil
zest and juice of one lemon
2 tbsp poppy seeds
½ tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla paste

1. Pre heat the oven to 180 ˚C (fan oven).
2. Grease loaf tin with olive oil and dust with flour.
3. Combine flour, ground almond, salt, baking powder, baking soda and lemon zest in a bowl and mix together.
4. In another bowl, whisk eggs, olive oil, sugar, lemon juice, poppy seeds and vanilla extract till well combined and the sugar almost dissolved- about 5 minutes or so.
5. Pour the wet ingredients onto the dry ingredients and fold in with the spatula till combined. Do not over mix.
6. I used a mini loaf tin and this batter will make 6 mini loaves or 1 big loaf. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 25-30 mins for mini loaves or 40-50 mins for one big loaf or till a skewer comes out clean.
7. Cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes, then run a knife along the edges and turn the loaf out onto the wire rack to cool.
   

You can ice the loaf with lemon cream cheese frosting or drizzle with a lemon drizzle. For the cream cheese frosting, I take about 100 g of icing sugar and beat it into 2 tbsp of cream cheese plus 1 tbsp of lemon juice with half a lemon’s zest in it. If you find the frosting too runny, just add more icing sugar, if its too sweet for you just add another tbsp of cream cheese, I really do this by eye. I usually keep this frosting in the fridge while the cake is cooling to firm it up a little. When the cake is cool, spread onto the cake and- EAT 🙂

Limoncello cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

A lot has been going on , with stuff at home, birthdays , with laziness in between and enjoying a long summer this year, I have been super lazy with blogging but not with baking. There has been plenty made and eaten.  And more than plenty that needs to be written.

So, I had got this bottle of lovely limoncello from Italy from my holiday earlier this year (it seems like looong long time ago) and I really wanted to try and use it in baking. So I made these limoncello cupcakes and a cake with the same recipe. I love using buttermilk in cakes, it just makes the cakes so moist and gives them a much deeper flavour. For the filling in the cupcakes and the cake, I used some home made lemon curd to give them an extra lemony kick and layered it up in lemony lemon cream cheese frosting. It is lemon all the way and I love it!

280 g cake flour ( to make your own cake flour- for every cup of plain flour- a cup of plain flour, remove 2 tbsp of the plain flour and add 2 tbsp of cornstarch and sift this mixture 2-3 times so that the cornstarch is distributed evenly)
1 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
3 eggs
113 g butter at room temperature
270 g granulated sugar
1 cup buttermilk (If you do not have buttermilk, use whole milk and add about a tbsp of lemon juice, stir and let it sit for 5 minutes and then use instead of buttermilk)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp limoncello (optional- can substitute with more lemon juice)
zest of 2 lemons

1. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together in a bowl.
2. In another bowl, cream butter and sugar till it gets light and fluffy. This takes about 2-3 minutes.
3. Add the eggs and vanilla extract and beat till combined-this takes about 2 minutes.
4. Slowly add dry ingredients to the wet mix and stir with the spatula. Now add buttermilk, lemon zest and lemon juice and mix till just combined, do not over mix.
5. Pour into cupcake liners and bake at 180 ˚C for 17-20 mins or till the skewer comes out clean. If making it as a cake, bake for a longer time.

For the cream cheese limoncello frosting:

113 g unsalted butter at room temperature
113 g cream cheese at room temperature
1 tbsp limoncello or lemon juice
2 cups of powdered sugar

In a bowl, beat cream cheese with butter till light and fluffy. Add limoncello and mix. Gradually beat in powdered sugar till it is fully incorporated.

For cupcakes, scoop out a spoonful from the center of the cupcake and add a spoon a lemon curd and top with the limoncello frosting.

I even made some macarons using this recipe and with cream cheese frosting filling to go along with the cake!

Lemon curd

Lemon curd is a lovely filling for any dessert and more so if it is homemade. Unlike most of the store bought ones, which is usually just super sweet and not really creamy, home made ones are luscious, creamy and zingy! This recipe from joyofbaking.com is erfect, its not too eggy and not overloaded with sugar.

This recipe is makes about a 1 1/2 cups of lemon curd.

3 eggs
150 g granulated sugar
80 ml lemon juice
56 g unsalted butter at room temperature, cut into cubes
1 tbsp zest of lemon

In a stainless steel bowl set over a pan of simmering water, whisk eggs, sugar and lemon juice till blended. Stir constantly till the mixture is thick, this takes about 10 minutes.
Remove from heat and strain through a sieve. Whisk in the cubed butter and add in lemon zest. Store in a tightly capped jar in the fridge once cooled. I like to use it within a week.

Tarte au citron (Lemon tart)

After my recent first trip to Paris, I have been on a non-stop Parisian-food-hangover!! It was an amazing gastronomic trip. I managed to visit quite a few of the famous patisseries but almost all the patisseries around the city were a visual delight, my eyes were popping out of my head and I was drooling shamelessly standing at their window displays. I went to Jacques Genin’s but it was closed on the day (sob sob!). I had read so much about his amazing caramels and also that his tarte au citron is quite the best. So, I found a recipe for his tart online but he uses limes for the tarte au citron. I did not have limes at hand but had lemons. So I made his pastry recipe and used Pierre Herme’s recipe for the tart filling. The pastry is definitely THE best I have tasted! It was so easy to roll out really thin, came out crisp with a lovely colour. I also froze a few tart shells and later used them to make chocolate tarts. The filling is light and creamy with a very good kick of citrus.

Ingredients:
For  the sweet pastry

120 g butter, softened
85 g icing sugar
20 g almond flour
40 g whole egg
½ vanilla pod (I used 1 tsp of vanilla extract)
2 g salt
210 g plain flour

For the Filling:
226 g caster sugar
zest if 3 lemons
4 large eggs
177 ml  (3/4cup) lemon juice
300 g unsalted butter at room temperature cut into pieces
This recipe can make a 9” tart or about 6-8 small tarts.

For the tart shell, using a hand held mixer or by hand, mix the softened butter, icing sugar and almond flour. Add the egg and mix again. Add in the flour and mix gently. Pat into a dough and wrap in a cling film and keep in fridge for an hour and a half. After that roll it out on a floured surface, I sometimes roll it out in between cling film or parchment so that it does not stick. If it is still a little sticky, roll out, cover and refrigerate for another hour before lining the tart tin. Now cut the dough the size of your pan + sides+ 1cm. Line the tray, wrap in cling film again and refrigerate preferably overnight. Next day, bake the pastry at 180˚C for about 20 mins or till it is golden brown in colour.

Sweet pastry tart shells

For the filling:

1. In a bowl (which you can put over a pan of simmering water), add the lemon zest to the sugar and rub it in the sugar with your fingers for a minute or two. This will infuse wonderful flavours into the sugar.
2. Now whisk the eggs into the sugar followed by the lemon juice.
3. Put the bowl over simmering water without the bottom of the pan touching the water, and whisk till the mixture reaches 180˚F, I used a cooking thermometer to check the temperature. Whisk constantly else the eggs will scramble. The mixture will become foamy and then bubbly. This can take about 10 minutes so keep patience.
4. Take the lemon cream off the heat when it reaches 180˚F and let it cool to 140 ˚F. Now add the lemon cream to the food processor, with the food processor on slowly add the butter to it, till all the butter is added (make sure you stop and scrape couple of times in between), and everything is incorporated.
5. Pour the mixture out into a container, i use jam jars, cover the mixture and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight.
6. Spoon into the tart shell.

Note: When I made this filling, I noticed that the temperature of the lemon cream and the butter is very important. The first time I tried, my butter was too cold and hence the mixture after setting in the fridge was more like lemon whipped buttercream than lemon filling for tart. So make sure that your butter is well softened and also that your lemon cream mixture is still hot (about 140 ˚F).

more like lemon buttercream than tart filling!

Lemon tart filling

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Thanks for stopping by!