Meyer lemon shortbread bars with candied kumquats

Meyer lemon shortbread bars with candied kumquats. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

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This is an idea from David Tanis' marvelous cookbook, "Heart of the Artichoke and Other Culinary Journeys" (Artisan Books, 2010). Take a shortbread base, cover it with lemon curd, bake and top with candied kumquats. It's a sweet and citrus-y treat in the dead of winter. I used Meyer lemons because they're here (they're finally here!), but any lemon will do.

First, make the candied kumquats:

Candied kumquats

11 ounces kumquats
1 cup water
1 cup sugar

1. Wash kumquats. Slice each fruit in half and flick out seed.

2. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, add water and sugar and stir until dissolved. Add kumquats and cook until the fruit is soft, about 30 minutes, stirring frequently.

3. Let cool. Keep in airtight container in refrigerator.

Then the lemon curd:

  
Meyer lemon curd

2 1/4 cup sugar
5 tbsp cornstarch
2 tsp lemon zest
1 cup cold water
3/4 cup freshly squeezed Meyer lemon juice (from 2-3 lemons)
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 tbsp unsalted butter
 

1.  Whisk the sugar with the cornstarch and lemon zest in a saucepan, until well mixed, then gradually whisk in the cold water and the lemon juice. Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until thickened. Remove from heat.

2. Lightly beat the eggs in a separate bowl until smooth, then gradually whisk about 1/4 of the hot lemon mixture into the eggs. Whisk constantly to keep the mixture smooth. Add the warmed egg mixture slowly back to the saucepan with the remaining hot lemon mixture, still whisking constantly.

3. Cook mixture, whisking constantly, still over medium heat, until thick and glossy. Remove from heat and whisk in the unsalted butter. Cool, then cover and chill thoroughly. Mixture can be held in the fridge for up to a week.

Then the shortbread base:

  Shortbread

1 cup unsalted butter, slightly softened

 ½ cup powder sugar (10X)  

1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour  

1/2 cup rice flour  

¼ teaspoon salt  

1 teaspoon vanilla


1. Preheat oven to 325. In a mixer, cream butter and sugar, then add flours gradually. Add salt and vanilla.

2.  Pat dough evenly into a 10-inch square pan, going slightly up the sides of the pan. Spread with a layer of lemon curd. Bake at 325 for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool. Top with candied kumquats.

Text and images copyright 2012, Lucy Mercer.

 

Meyer lemon tea loaf recipe

Meyer lemon tea loaf. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

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 My love of lemon is well-documented in this blog - lemon pudding, lemon scones, lemon ice cream, and lemon cream cheese pound cake are just a few of my favorites. That fresh citrus scent fills my kitchen and makes my heart happy. 


And just when I thought a lemon was a lemon was a lemon, Meyer lemons appeared (finally!) in my local markets. Meyers are a cross between true lemons and a Mandarin orange - the skin is smoother and the taste is less acidic than the standard Eureka or Lisbon lemons. The can be substituted for regular lemons in recipes to add a subtle orange flavor. Try them.

Meyer Lemon Tea Loaf

Yield: 2 loaves

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened


2 cups sugar

4 eggs

Zest of 2 Meyer lemons

3 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

For glaze: ½ cup sugar dissolved in juice of 2 lemons

1. Preheat oven to 350. Prepare two loaf pans using baking spray or greasing with butter.

2. In a mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, mixing until fully incorporated. Add lemon rind. Sift together dry ingredients, then add alternately to the batter with milk. Pour batter into prepared baking pans.

3. Place pans in 350 oven and bake for 45 minutes. Bake until toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool on wire racks.

4. While cake is cooling, dissolve sugar in the juice of two lemons. Slowly pour glaze over cakes and let cool.



 

Meyer lemon scones with dried blueberries

Scones with Meyer lemon and blueberries. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

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Lemons and blueberries are a natural pairing, and the winter version of this is Meyer lemons, the lemon-orange hybrid available for just a short while, and dried blueberries. Frieda's Specialty Produce sent me a package that included dried blueberries, just as sweet as mid-summer berries at the u-pick orchard. I folded the berries into my favorite buttermilk scone recipe, and freshened the dough with Meyer lemon zest and a glaze made with the juice.

Meyer lemon scones with dried blueberries
My favorite tip for tender scones is to shred chilled butter into the dry ingredients. I just use an ordinary grater, the kind I use for shredding cheddar cheese, and run the chilled stick of butter across it. The resulting butter curls are uniform and perfect for blending into the flour mixture.

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup unsalted butter, frozen
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
Zest of one Meyer (or other) lemon
Juice of one-half Meyer (or other) lemon
1/2 cup dried blueberries
Milk or cream for glazing
Turbinado, demerara or sparkle sugar for glazing

1. In a batter bowl, mix dry ingredients together. Using a regular grater, shred the chilled butter and with a light hand, gently mix the shavings into the dry ingredients. Using your hands and a gentle, quick touch, make sure the butter is evenly distributed throughout the flour mixture.

2. Pour in the buttermilk and stir gently with either a wooden spoon or my instrument of choice, a silicone spatula. Add lemon juice and zest. If mixture seems dry, add additional buttermilk until a cohesive dough forms. The dough should be slightly wet and sticky, but not overly so.

3. On a floured countertop, press dough into a rough 12 X 6 inch rectangle (helpful shaping instruction visuals may be found on my basic scone post  here). Spread dried blueberries onto dough, using your hands to press the fruit into the dough. Fold into thirds, letter-style. Press into 12 X 6 rectangle again and fold letter-style again. If any little fruits pop out, just press them back into the dough. Press again into a 12 X 6 rectangle and cut into 16 triangles. Place scones on a lined baking sheet. The scones can be refrigerated, covered, for up to 24 hours.

4. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Carefully brush each wedge with buttermilk or cream and sprinkle turbinado sugar over the top. Bake at 400 for at least 15 minutes. They may need a bit more time, depending on your oven, convection, etc. Scones are ready when they are golden brown on top and bounce back when touched lightly in the center.

Happy 4th Birthday, A Cook and Her Books!

Meyer lemon coconut macaroon tarts. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

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Today is the 4^th birthday of my dear little blog. Some bloggers call this a blogiversary, certainly one of the more unfortunate and unappealing words to come out of the internet revolution. It’s not an anniversary, it’s a birthday. I gave birth to it, I didn’t marry it.

I’ve never told the story of how A Cook and Her Books came to be, and it could be that it’s interesting only to me. It began because it snowed and my mother-in-law came to visit. I had been interested in writing a blog for awhile, but had been distracted by new motherhood. I remember reading a how-to article that said if you’re passionate about a subject, absolutely you should blog about it. This little thought percolated in my brain until one January afternoon in 2008, when I sat down at the computer in a quiet house and decided it was time to start a blog.

It was cold. It was January. And I was at home with a 2 year old and an octogenarian who took afternoon naps. ­­ Not being the napping kind, I took to the computer, I logged on to Blogger, chose a name and wrote a post. The name "A Cook and Her Books" came quickly – I knew it needed to start with an “A” because I figured any list of blogs would be alphabetical, kind of the triple A theory of Yellow Pages placement. As for the rest of the title, my house is filled with books and I cook, simple as that.

The first post was a little recipe that I’d made a couple times before, back in my bridal and baby shower-giving days, a lovely mini macaroon tart filled with lemon curd. I wrote a headnote and the recipe and hit “publish.” No pictures, no nothing. And so it went for the first couple of years. I occasionally added a picture, I didn’t always include a recipe, and sometimes I would get a comment from someone who wasn’t related to me.

Things have changed a little bit since then. For one, I include at least one picture with each post now. I also include recipes, rather than just rambling on and on about food. I talk about the blog on Twitter and Facebook and have a bit of a following. It’s still the Little Blog that Could, but I’m having more fun than ever with it – I have more stories than I’ll ever have time to write and more recipes than I’ll ever have time to cook.

The best part of all is that I've been able to share with writers and readers across the country who find a connection in what I write about. I've said it before, and I truly believe it: my world may be small, but my kitchen is big.

If you’re a regular reader or a first-timer, thank you for taking the time to read my words. It means more to me than you’ll ever know.

And give these little lemon macaroon tarts a whirl - they are keepers. I've updated them with Meyer lemons, which mellows out the tartness a bit, and gives a surprising hint of orange to the lemon curd filling. If you can't find Meyer lemons, plain ol' lemons will work just fine.

Meyer Lemon Macaroon Tarts

Yield: 36 miniature tarts

for the shells
4 cups flaked sweetened coconut
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp vanilla
3 egg whites

Toss the coconut with the sugar and flour until well coated. Add the vanilla and the egg whites. Beat on medium high speed setting until well mixed. Press mixtures evenly on bottoms and up the sides of 36 well-greased, miniature muffin cups (sprayed first with nonstick spray). The mixture will be sticky, but manageable. You may dampen your fingertips with water to make the job easier.

Use a tart tamper, a cup of water, and a dab of patience to make macaroon tart shells. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Bake on the lower rack of a preheated 400 oven about 15 minutes or until edges are nicely browned. Shells will not appear done in their centers. Cool shells in their tins 2 to 3 minutes, then immediately loosen with a sharp knife and remove to a rack to cool before filling.

Shells can be prepared and baked in advance and held in the fridge several days or frozen up to 1 month. Thaw or allow shells to come to room temp before filling.

Meyer lemon curd filling

2 1/4 cup sugar
5 tbsp cornstarch
2 tsp lemon zest
1 cup cold water
3/4 cup freshly squeezed Meyer lemon juice (from 2-3 lemons)
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 tbsp unsalted butter
whipped cream, for serving
lemon zest strips, for serving

Whisk the sugar with the cornstarch and lemon zest in a saucepan, until well mixed, then gradually whisk in the cold water and the lemon juice. Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until thickened. Remove from heat.

Lightly beat the eggs in a separate bowl until smooth, then gradually whisk about 1/4 of the hot lemon mixture into the eggs. Whisk constantly to keep the mixture smooth. Add the warmed egg mixture slowly back to the saucepan with the remaining hot lemon mixture, still whisking constantly.

Cook mixture, whisking constantly, still over medium heat, until thick and glossy. Remove from heat and whisk in the unsalted butter. Cool, then cover and chill thoroughly. Mixture can be held in the fridge for up to a week.

To serve, fill macaroon tart shells and garnish with whipped cream and lemon zest

Recipe is adapted from Homemade Good News, published a long time ago by Dixie Crystals Sugar.  

Footnote: while my dear mother-in-law visited, it began to snow. The girls were home from school and the fluffy flakes started falling. Here in Georgia, this is a rare and wonderful experience and it was the first time that the girls' grandmother got to see them play in the snow. She stood on our sheltered front porch watching the girls play. Here's a pair of pictures from that afternoon:

Meyer lemon cheesecake with a Biscoff crust

Meyer lemon cheesecake with Biscoff crust. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

A friend needed a cheesecake, and so I made one. And not just a plain vanilla cheesecake, this time it's flavored with the juice and zest of two Meyer lemons. Have you found the Meyer lemons in your supermarket produce section? (I'm asking this question of my local friends, not my California friends, who all seem to have Meyer lemon trees, leaden with fruit, and the problem of "too many Meyer lemons.")

This is the second year that I've found the lemons in my suburban Kroger, $1.99 for a bag. What is the magic of  a Meyer, you ask? Well, it's like a lemon, but not. It's like an orange, but not. It's somewhere in between - not quite as tart as the lemon, not quite as bold as the orange, but a pleasant in-between.

Meyer lemons. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

For my lemon cheesecake, I used Biscoff cookies for the crumb crust, instead of the usual graham crackers. Biscoff have a deeper, more molasses taste that suits the Meyer lemons well. Plus, they are just exotic enough to go with the slightly-left-of-center lift of the Meyers. If you fly Delta, save up your little packs, or just visit Kroger, like the rest of us.

Biscoff cookies. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

This is the best cheesecake I've ever made. Astute recipe readers will note that it's a riff on the classic Three Cities of Spain cheesecake from Gourmet.It is the best basic cheesecake recipe in the world, and is very adaptable. I added the zest and juice of two Meyer lemons, for just the right amount of zip.

Start with the crust:

Biscoff crust

5 ounces Biscoff cookies, broken up

1/3 cup sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1. Heat oven to 350. Prepare a 9-inch springform pan.

2. In a food processor, blitz Biscoff cookies until finely ground. Add sugar and salt and continue to process. Slowly pour in melted butter and process again.

3. Press mixture into bottom and up sides of springform pan. Bake in 350 oven for 10 minutes. Remove and let crust cool to room temperature.


Then make the filling:

Meyer Lemon Cheesecake

3 (8 oz.) packages cream cheese, softened (low-fat is fine, no-fat is not)

4 large eggs

1 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon lemon extract

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 Meyer lemons, zest removed, and juice reserved

1 (16 oz.) carton sour cream (low fat is fine, no-fat is not)

1 tablespoon sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. In a mixing bowl, place cream cheese and beat with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the sugar and mix well, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

3. Add 1/2 of the zest to the cheesecake batter, reserving the remainder. Add all of the juice and the extracts to the batter, and continue to mix. Pour batter into prepared crumb crust. Place pan on baking sheet and bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until cake is just set in center. Remove cake from oven but do not turn off oven.

4. Stir together sour cream, 1 tablespoon sugar and remaining lemon zest. Spoon this mixture onto the cheesecake and spread with an offset spatula or knife. Return the cake to the oven and bake for 10 additional minutes. Remove cheesecake from oven and let cool to room temperature. Store cheesecake, well-wrapped in refrigerator.

Text and images copyright 2012, Lucy Mercer.