gumdrop cake and turning 2

Last night, I dreamed of gumdrop cake.

I saw a slice of cake, close up. It was white and fluffy and the gumdrops were perfectly distributed throughout the cake – you know, almost suspended in the air of the cake. It was a beautiful thing.

In fact, if you make this cake with regular wheat flour, that dream can be your reality.

If you make this cake with gluten-free flours, your pretty gumdrops will drop (ooh, foreshadowing!) to the bottom half of the cake and give you a gumdrop layer cake.

I have given this a great deal of thought today and I believe that, according to the laws of physics, that is just the way things are meant to be. I mean, with no gluten to hold up the gumdrops in the cake, what can they do but drop?

Anyway, all that to say: it doesn't matter! Because whether you have gumdrop studded cake or gumdrop layer cake, you still end up with a rich, buttery cake that is just right for celebrating.

Yes, this little blog is turning two and I thought rainbow gumdrops were appropriate for celebrating this toddler achievement. I am also celebrating with a new plum and star anise header and – coming very soon – a print button so you can quick-as-a-snap print just the recipe you want.

You might say, "Stephanie, my goodness, two years! You have posted 84 recipes in that time! What are your favourites?"

And I would say:

* grand forks borscht
* salmon with sugar-salt rub
* loganberry jelly
* chocolate raspberry horse turds
* sophisticated marshmallow squares
 
Or maybe you wouldn't say that at all and you would like me to get back to the gumdrop cake, please. Certainly.

 Mrs. Doucet strikes again!

I first tried this cake days – days, I tell you! – after New Year's when I was visiting Angela in Halifax many years ago. Her mom had sent this cake home with her after Christmas.

I had never eaten gumdrop cake before and I was entranced. I do believe I ate a small slice every day of the four or five days I visited. The cake was dense and soft, and the chewy gumdrops provided pockets of chewy, gummy love.

This cake has a somewhat indecent amount of butter. Do not be tempted to cut it. I repeat: do not. I do believe the butter – and the milk and the sugar – gives it a lovely buttery flavour and helps it have a long, stable shelf-life. (Which is perfect, since this cake is rich and you will be happy with just having a little slice every day.)

After all, it's birthday cake. It should have lots of butter and milk and sugar – and gumdrops.

One February ago:  whisky marmalade and bacon-wrapped dates with olives and almonds
Two Februarys ago: creamy celeriac soup and muesli
Related: gumdrop cookies

gumdrop cake

If you'd like to scale the recipe down to half – which I highly recommend if there is only one or two of you in the house – use a 6-inch pan and bake for about one hour and 15 minutes. If you use an 8-inch or 9-inch pan with half a recipe, bake for about 35 minutes.

2 c. regular gumdrops or jujubes*
1 c. butter
3 eggs
2 c. sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 c. + 2 1/2 c. wheat flour
     Or gluten-free flours:
     98 g. uncontaminated oat flour
     98  g. sweet white sorghum flour
     98 g. sweet rice flour
     98 g. tapioca or arrowroot starch
     98 g. potato starch
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 c. warm milk

Cut gumdrops into thirds and sprinkle with 1 cup of the flour. Cover them, and leave them to sit on the counter overnight.

When you're ready to start baking, preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter a tube pan. Dust with flour.

Beat the butter, eggs, sugar and vanilla together until somewhat fluffy. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour(s), baking powder and salt together well. Alternately add the milk and the dry ingredients to the butter mixture. Fold in gum drops. Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake for 1 1/2 hours, or until golden brown and your cake tester comes out clean. Let cool fully before eating. Keeps well in a sealed container on the counter for quite a while.

* Use regular gumdrops or jujubes, not the baking ones. Take out any that are black or clove-flavoured.

dominosteine and christmas treats

My dear readers, I have been trying to make some Christmas treats to share with you. Trying being the key word.

After rolling and carefully cutting out a promising new recipe of cinnamon stars . . . they melted into tasty but shapeless blobs as they baked.

Then I pulled out a tried and true truffle recipe – one I've been using since I was 16! – and what do you think happened? Somehow, the chocolate separated and I have some very grainy pre-truffle mixture lurking in my fridge. (It's certainly not worth rolling.)

Now, I am in Toronto for work and there is no baking going on in my hotel room. So, all I can do is tell you about my favourite little German Christmas treat: dominosteine.

Maybe you've seen them in the import section of your grocery store and wondered what those dark chocolate cubes were? Well, they are actually the perfect cross between a chocolate and a cookie, and I would recommend you eat at least two every day leading up to Christmas.

The bottom layer is a soft lebkuchen or gingerbread. Top that with an apple jelly. And top that with marzpian! (No, I am never far from marzipan.) And cover it all in dark chocolate! Yes, you see why I love them so.

I know, I know, you still want to do some Christmas baking. Well, until my unlucky streak runs out and I'm back with both a pretty and edible recipe to share, how about repeats?

Here are a few ideas from the past (both pretty and edible) that could work for Christmas:

tipsy rum balls

chocolate nut balls

shortbread

salted chocolate shortbread

walnut slugs

butter tarts

bacon-wrapped dates with olives and almonds

spicy cajun almonds

Do you have any good recipes to share? (Yup, I'm looking for ones that actually work.)

applesauce spice cake

When I asked my dad what desserts he ate growing up, he said – without a moment's hesitation – applesauce cake. And he always made the icing while his mother made the rest of dinner.

This was quite something, as my dad has a notoriously bad memory for what happened when he was growing up or, really, any time in the first thirty or forty years of his life.

Apples, he said, grew in their yard and they were free and they kept, so they ate them a lot. Applesauce cake, apple pie, apple roly-poly, plain old applesauce . . . they ate a lot of apples.

(In fact, dad also tells the story of how eventually his mother decided she didn't like applesauce. But she had to eat it throughout her life. Even when she was dying, people kept making her applesauce because they thought it would be an easy thing to eat, little realizing it was the last thing she wanted.)

So, it was only fitting that when dad came to visit us last weekend, what should he bring but apples? Two kinds: wind falls and Bramley's Seedling, which dad says are the best cooking apples out there. Add those to the box of Cox's Orange Pippin apples friends brought us the weekend before and I decided there was nothing for it but to make applesauce cake.

This is a humble little cake. It is not excessively sweet or moist or modern. But somehow, it's just right. I found myself eating one bite and thinking, "Hmmn, that's pretty good." And before I was done chewing I had the next bite ready to pop in. Suddenly, I was done a whole piece of cake and I had hardly noticed.

You may look at the recipe and be alarmed about the nuts and raisins. (Do you, like me, sometimes find raisins to be an interloper in cake?) Stay calm. The raisins are chopped and somehow they just meld right into the dough and make it good. Seriously, won't you try it just once with the raisins, for me?

By the way, this recipe comes via my great aunt Marjorie (my grandmother's sister) from what looks like a church cookbook. The original author is Mrs. L. Faulkner on Lulu Island, B.C. Thank you, Mrs. L. Faulkner.

Last November: west african peanut soup via Winnipeg 

applesauce spice cake

1/2 c. butter
1 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 c. chopped raisins
1/2 c. chopped walnuts or pecans
2 c. sifted cake flour
     or gluten-free:
     56 g. (1/2 c. + 1 tbsp. + 2 tsp.) pure oat flour
     56 g. (1/2 c.) sweet white sorghum flour
     56 g. (1/3 c.) sweet rice flour
     56 g. (1/3 c. + 1 tbsp.) tapioca starch
     56 g. (1/3 c. + 1 tbsp.) potato starch
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 c. unsweetened applesauce

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease 8" x 8" cake pan.

Cream butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add eggs and mix. Stir in the nuts and raisins. Set aside.

Stir the flour(s), salt, baking soda, nutmeg and cinnamon together. Alternate between adding this mixture and the applesauce to the butter mixture. Pour into pan.

Bake about 30 minutes, until your cake poker comes out clean. Let cool in the pan on a rack.


icing
 
3 tbsp. butter
1 1/2 c. icing or powdered sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
(about) 2 tbsp. milk

Cream the butter and icing sugar together. Beat in the vanilla. Add the milk a bit at a time until you get the consistency you'd like. Spread over cooled cake.

quince almond cake

A homely little fruit has changed my life.

It is called a quince and it is the most beguiling fruit I have ever eaten.

I am so enamoured of my fuzzy little friend that I’ve done all kinds of reading about the quince. Did you know the quince might be the very fruit Eve was tempted to eat in the Garden of Eden? Did you know there are more recipes for quinces in medieval cookbooks than any other orchard fruit?

I know! I had never even eaten a quince until three days ago and it has this epic history. Which – now that I have eaten one – I must say seems apt.

A quince looks like a deformed apple or pear. He has a dusting of uneven fuzz, much like an adolescent boy. (This fuzz comes off easily with warm water and a bit of rubbing, also much like an adolescent boy.)

Once you peel that quince, you will find a light beige flesh, almost like an old apple. You must sharpen your knife before attempting to cut said flesh, as it feels like an old piece of wood while you saw through it.

But this – this! – is why the quince is so alluring.

With just a few hours (!) of poaching, his flesh gets soft and . . . pink. Yes, pink! If you cook him even longer, he’ll get almost ruby red. And all the while, he'll be releasing this lovely quince perfume, making you very, very hungry to eat him.

So you can see why I’m in love. The quince has officially taken his place as my new favourite fruit.

I’ve been wanting to try quince since I read about vanilla-poached quince, quince almond cake and quince jelly on Chocolate and Zucchini last fall. Naturally, I followed Clotilde’s advice as I dealt with my beloved new friend. I set aside half my quinces to poach with a vanilla bean, à la Chocolate and Zucchini.

Once my first set of quinces were done poaching, I threw in a bit more sugar – maybe half a cup – and kept boiling them in the hopes that I might end up with an informal quince jelly. Then I forgot about them while we were eating dinner . . . only to smell something burning and to run back to the stove to find the liquid almost boiling over. I quickly poured the dark liquid into another pan to cool, thinking it was a goner.

But once again, my little quince pulled through! After 20 minutes, I had quince paste or membrillo (which is a lot more fun to say). 

We have eaten shiny slices of membrillo as dessert and are also planning to try it with cheese.

Now, back to the story about the cake.

You should make this cake. Probably today. Because if you make it tomorrow, you’ll wonder what you’d been waiting for. It has a lovely moist crumb, flecked with little pieces of soft pink quince. The ground almonds give it an earthy quality, but don’t weigh it down at all. It’s springy and tender . . . and even keeps for days without drying out.

I know, I know, quinces are hard to come by. (Look at me: I had to wait a whole year to find them.) But pears are not. And pears are good, too. (They’re in my top 10 for fruit.) So try this with pears and let me know how you like it. But truly, truly, just make this cake. Oh, and go find yourself some quinces.

Last October: pear ginger jam

Clotilde’s recipe is so good that I’ve only cut it in half, switched the sugars and converted it to gluten-free.

Here is the recipe for vanilla-poached quince. If you don’t have quinces, raw pieces of pear will work, too.

Clotilde uses weight measurements for her recipes, which makes them exact and easy to convert to gluten-free. I’ve left the weights, with rough volume measurements for those of you who don’t have a scale yet. Just buy one!

quince almond cake from chocolate and zucchini

100 g. (3/4 c. + 1 tbsp. + 1tsp.) wheat flour 

50 g. (1/4 c. + 2 tbsp.) ground almonds

            Or – for gluten-free:

            22 g. (1/4 c.) pure oat flour

            22 g. (3 tbsp.) sweet white sorghum flour

            22 g. (3 tbsp.) tapioca starch

            22 g. (3 tbsp.) potato starch

            22 g. (3 tbsp.) sweet rice flour

            40 g. (1/4 c. + 1 tsp.) ground almonds

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/8 tsp. salt

1 egg

100 g. (1/2 c.) white sugar

25 g. (2 tbsp. + 2 tsp.) vegetable or grapeseed oil

100 g. (1/3 c.) plain yogurt

a splash of brandy or rum

200 g. (heaping 1 c.) vanilla-poached quinces or chopped raw pears

brown sugar to sprinkle

Preheat the oven to 360 degrees Fahrenheit (180 degrees Celcius). Line an 8-inch cake pan with parchment paper.

Stir the flour(s), ground almonds, baking powder, baking soda and salt together. Set aside.

In another bowl, beat the eggs and sugar together. Stir in the oil, yogurt and brandy. Add the quince or pear. If you used wheat flour, stir gently to mix it together. If you used gluten-free flours, stir as much as you want – you don’t need to worry about activating any gluten.

Pour into your prepared pan. Use a knife or spoon to level the top. Sprinkle with brown sugar.

Bake for 30 – 33 minutes or until a knife or cake pick comes out clean. It will be golden brown by this point. Keep it in the pan, but let it cool on a rack. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature.

kristina's nuss kuchen

I need lunch.

You may feed me breakfast at 11 o’clock.

But I will not be tricked.

Come 1 o’clock, I need lunch. And I mean a proper lunch, preferably hot with all the food groups. Do not give me a cracker or a piece of fruit and call it lunch. You do not want to see the consequences of not feeding me lunch.

Eight years ago, my mother and I were visiting relatives and family friends in Germany. We took the train from Osnabrück to Hamburg one July morning, riding for about 3 hours.

I was hungry on the train and considered buying lunch there. But since lunch is like dinner in Germany, I do believe my mother convinced me not to. (Or perhaps I came up with the not-so-brilliant plan of starving all by myself.) We were due to arrive just after 1 o’clock, and we thought my mom’s cousin Kristina and her husband Klaus would feed us.

Well.

Klaus and Kristina welcomed us warmly and took us out to a pretty, shaded table on the deck. As you might imagine, I was hungry and having rather overwhelming visions of lunch at that point.

Kristina went inside to bring out the food, and we waited with anticipation.

But what she returned with was not hot or hearty or even savoury.

It was a cake.

I took one look at that cake and felt tears pricking. Then I felt a sniffle. I just wanted lunch. I just wanted to die of embarrassment, crying in the middle of the day at a perfectly nice cake brought out by relatives I had only met once before.

My dear mother went inside to explain in German and came back with a yogurt for me. I brushed away my tears and prayed my red nose would calm down sooner rather than later.

Finally, my yogurt eaten, we all tried the cake.

It was, in fact, a perfect summer afternoon cake: sour cherries on a tender cake that was so hazelnut-y I knew I had to be in Germany.

Needless to say, I took a deep breath and asked for the recipe.

I have been making it ever since – for dessert, not lunch – fumbling around, trying to adapt the European weight measurements into cups and teaspoons. Even with my haphazard measuring guesses, it always baked up into a lovely cake and made me think of Hamburg.

Now, I have a scale, so it’s much easier to follow the recipe exactly. (However, dear reader, I know you may not have a scale – yet – so I have converted it into funny volume measurements just for you.)

Since it’s July, I decided to use fresh cherries this time. Baked, they are not quite as pretty as the very red sour cherries, but with a dollop of cream, it’s a very delicious cake indeed. Feed me this any day – for dessert, not lunch.

last july: honey orange cream and minestrone with summer herbs

cherry hazelnut cake
a.k.a. kristina's nuss kuchen

serves 8

100 g. (scant 3/4 c.) hazelnuts

450 g. (3 c.) fresh cherries or canned sour cherries

125 g. (2/3 c.) butter

125 g. (1/2 c. + 2 tbsp.) sugar

2 eggs

1 tbsp. milk

1/4 tsp. salt

6 g. (1 tsp. + scant 1/4 tsp. baking powder)

150 g. (1 c. + 1 tbsp.) wheat flour

            Or, gluten-free flours:

            30 g. (1/4 c.) sweet white sorghum flour

            30 g. (1/4 c. + 1 tbsp.) oat flour*

            30 g. (3 tbsp.) sweet rice flour

            30 g. (1/4 c.) tapioca starch

            30 g. (3 tbsp.) potato starch

whipped cream, for serving**

Preheat the oven to 360 degrees Fahrenheit (180 – 200 degrees Celcius). Butter a 9 or 10-inch springform pan.

Grind the hazelnuts finely in a food processor. Try to stop before they become hazelnut butter. Set aside.

Pit cherries if necessary. If using fresh, chop them roughly. Set aside.

Cream butter and sugar together. Beat in the eggs and milk. Set aside.

Mix the dry ingredients together – stir well. Stir into the creamed mixture. Scrape into the prepared pan. Place cherries over top to cover. Bake for 30 – 40 minutes, until golden brown and a cake tester comes out crumb-free.

Once the cake has cooled, serve with a dollop of whipped cream.

* Make sure the label specifies pure oats if you are gluten-free

** I like to whip the cream with a bit of Frangelico (more hazelnut flavour!) and sugar

           

sour cream coffee cake

I am happy to report that sour cream coffee cake has restored my faith in my beloved “COOK BOOK.”

This cake – which actually makes two almost identical appearances in the book – is everything I had hoped.

It calls for the somewhat unusual step of mixing the sour cream and baking soda in a small bowl.* This made me think of all those science experiments I used to conduct with baking soda and vinegar over the kitchen sink as a child. Some kind of chemical reaction is definitely happening to the sour cream: it puffs up and is incredibly fun to stir, because it suddenly doesn’t feel one bit like sour cream.

Then the cake marbles itself as you bake it, but there’s no complicated light batter and dark batter to mix up and create twice the dishes. Instead, you put half the batter in the cake pan and sprinkle it with a cinnamon-nut-sugar mixture. 

 Pour over the rest of the batter and sprinkle again. Voilà!

It bakes into a lovely little cake. (A six-inch cake, if you must know. After my scare with the chocolate tomato juice cake, it seemed prudent to halve this large recipe.)

The crumb is incredibly moist and the bits of brown sugar and nut provide a sparkle on the tongue.

If I lived a life of leisure and could entertain friends with coffee in the mid-morning, this is the cake I would serve them. As it is, sour cream cake is darn fine any other time of day, even if you must eat it at your desk in the workaday world.


*Yes, yes, of course this makes sense for the acid in the sour cream to release the magic in the baking powder. But still – have you ever done this before?

last may: putting asparagus on pizza

sour cream coffee cake

bakes to fill a 6” round pan

may easily double to bake in 8” x 8” pan or larger

1/4 c. brown sugar

1/4 c. walnuts or pecans, finely chopped

1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 c. sour cream

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 c. soft butter

1/2 c. sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 tsp. vanilla

3/4 c. + 2 tbsp. wheat flour

            Or, for gluten-free:

            25 g. (scant 1/4 c.) sweet white sorghum flour

            22 g. (1/4 c.) oat flour

            25 g. (3 tbsp.) sweet rice flour

            25. g. (3 tbsp.) tapioca starch

            25 g. (3 tbsp.) potato starch

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease and flour your pan with either wheat flour or sweet rice flour.

Combine brown sugar, nuts and cinnamon in a small bowl. Set aside.

Combine sour cream and baking soda in a bowl. Set aside.

Cream butter and sugar thoroughly. Add vanilla and egg; beat well. Set aside.

Mix flour(s), baking powder and salt well. Alternate adding dry ingredients and sour cream mixture to butter mixture. Spread half of batter in pan. Sprinkle with half of cinnamon mixture. Cover with rest of batter. Sprinkle with half of cinnamon mixture.

Bake 30 – 45 minutes, depending on pan size. Remove from oven when a cake poker comes out clean.

canadian boterkoek

Boterkoek literally means “butter cake” in Dutch.

Indeed, it is packed with butter, but the main flavour here is almond. If you don’t like almonds, you won’t like boterkoek.

Luckily, I do like almonds. Butter is also one of my main food groups, so this cake makes me very happy.

It’s dense and chewy, with a lovely almond flavour – almost like eating marzipan that has been turned into cake.

This recipe comes from my friend Tara, who is married to a man with Dutch parents. She discovered the happy marriage of boterkoek and icing by a lucky mistake.

One day when she made the cake, she forgot to press almonds on the batter before putting it in the oven.

Once it was baked and she realized her mistake, she made a little icing so the almonds would have something to stick to. She thought it tasted even better with the icing – and I agreed when I was lucky enough to try it – but her husband pronounced: “It’s not Dutch.”

And so I give you this non-traditional boterkoek with icing, which I feel compelled to call “Canadian boterkoek.” After all, we know from the authority: it’s not Dutch.

Note: If you need a gluten-free cake, the options are in the recipe. I’ve substituted ground almonds for part of the wheat flour and they work really well. Even if you can eat wheat flour, I’d recommend subtracting a quarter cup of wheat flour and adding a quarter cup of ground almonds instead.

canadian boterkoek

1 1/2 c. white sugar

3/4 c. butter, melted

2 eggs

1 tsp. almond extract

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1/4 tsp. salt

1 1/2 c. wheat flour (or 1 1/4 c. wheat flour + 1/4 c. ground almonds)

or for gluten-free:

1/3 c. sweet white sorghum flour

1/3 c. tapioca starch

1/3 c. ground almonds

1/2 c. rice flour

2 tsp. xanthan or guar gum

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Line an 8 x 8 inch square or 9 inch round pan with parchment paper. Grease the paper with a bit of butter where it will touch the batter.

Mix the sugar and butter together. Stir in the eggs, almond extract and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, stir the flour(s) and salt together well.

Stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture. Scrape into the prepared pan.

Bake 25 – 40 minutes, depending on the size of your pan.

almond icing

3 tbsp. butter

1 2/3 c. icing or powdered sugar

1/4 tsp. vanilla

1/8 tsp. almond extract

(about) 2 tbsp. milk

a few sliced almonds to place on top

Cream the butter, icing sugar, vanilla and almond extract together.

Add the milk teaspoon by teaspoon until you have the consistency you like. (I like it a bit runny – right in between the texture of a glaze and an icing.)

Spread on cooled cake.

Press sliced almonds on top.

little lemon cakes

I have been eating my Great-Grandma McNair’s lemon loaf as long as I can remember.

When I was a child, my Grandma made it. It would often be in that little wooden drawer along with the other goodies: chocolate cake, at least two kinds of cookies . . . Let’s just say I come by my sweet tooth honestly.

After my Grandma died ten years ago, my dear Great-Aunt Marjorie (her sister) sent me a fat envelope full of photos and family recipes.

I attempted the lemon loaf almost right away and it quickly became a staple. One of those recipes that don’t need exotic ingredients from the store, I could just whip it up whenever I felt like lemon loaf. It always worked and kept well – moist and lemony with a bit of butter spread on top.

But when I entered the strange, leaden world of gluten-free baking, I set the lemon loaf aside – I would conquer it when I had more confidence.

Last week, after three years of gluten-free flops and fanfare, I felt ready to take on my beloved lemon loaf.

I decided to make little cupcakes because gluten-free loaves can be tricky – burnt on the outside, mushy on the inside.

I swapped rice flour, tapioca starch and cornstarch for the wheat flour . . . held my breath while they baked . . . anxiously waited for them to cool . . . and rejoiced!

Lemon loaf is back in my house, just in a different form. These little cakes are chewy and last a few days, if you like to savour them. I brought these ones to Valentine’s parties, so I added icing and candied lemon to make them more festive.

I present to you:

Little lemon cakes for the gluten-free

The original lemon loaf for the gluten eaters

little lemon cakes

1/2 c. butter or margarine

1 c. white sugar

2 eggs

juice and rind from 1 lemon

2/3 c. rice flour

1/2 c. tapioca starch

1/3 c. cornstarch

3/4 tsp. xanthan or guar gum

pinch of salt

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 c. milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Grease or line cupcake tins.

Cream butter and sugar together. Mix in the eggs, lemon juice and lemon rind. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, blend the rice flour, tapioca starch, cornstarch, xanthan gum, salt and baking powder until they are mixed well.

Alternately add the milk and flour mixture to the butter mixture. Stir just until blended.

Fill the cupcake holders until they are almost full.

For mini-cupcakes, bake 12 to 14 minutes.

For regular-sized cupcakes, bake 17 to 19 minutes.

lemon icing for cupcakes

6 tbsp. butter

3 c. icing or powdered sugar

juice and rind from 1 lemon

Cream the butter, icing sugar and lemon rind together.

Add the lemon juice tablespoon by tablespoon until you have the consistency you like.

Spread on cooled cupcakes.

If you’d like to make candied lemon to go on top, as I did, I’d suggest this recipe.

the original lemon loaf

1/2 c. butter or margarine

1 c. white sugar

2 eggs

juice and rind from 1 lemon

1 1/2 c. all purpose wheat flour

1 tsp. baking powder

pinch of salt

1/2 c. milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Grease a loaf pan.

Cream butter and sugar together. Mix in the eggs, lemon juice and lemon rind. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, blend the flour, salt and baking powder.

Alternately add the milk and flour mixture to the butter mixture. Stir just until blended.

Pour into the loaf pan.

Bake for 45 minutes.

lemon loaf glaze

juice of 1 lemon

1/4 c. white sugar

Mix. Pour over loaf when it’s warm from the oven and the glaze will melt into it.