Monday, March 16, 2009

When life gives you three lemons...

DO NOT waste them on lemonade!!!

So do you remember that dwarf Meyer lemon tree that I was so excited about this summer? And how I brought in it over winter and it looked a bit sparse but otherwise seemed like it was gonna do ok indoors?

Yeah, well that didn't work out so great. Unfortunately Senior Meyer bit the dust a short while back...

Of the lemons it DID produce, only three were full sized and ripe - there were another three or so runty things that died and fell off the tree before the tree itself croaked. Hm. So whoop-de-doo - three lemons. This sucks.

Well, let's make 'em count for something!

Oh...and another thing. I was so excited about this lemon tree this past summer/fall/early winter that Finny recommended a book she loves - Luscious Lemon Desserts. So I asked for that for Christmas, and Brett's folks were kind enough to get it for me. I was very excited!

Granted...then the tree died. OH well - I can still use STORE BOUGHT (how blase') lemons for other recipes from the book.

So let's get started...


Even though I took these pictures AFTER I'd grated off all their peel, they were still looking mighty sexy... Go on, check 'em out...


They were fairly seedy, but that was nothing my little manual juicer couldn't handle while I extracted all their good juice.

Here's the finished result, fresh from the oven. Check out this lemon pound cake!


Once it was flipped out of the pan, it was drizzled with a lemon-zest and lemon-juice infused glaze, which quickly soaked into the cake (this wasn't like one of those drizzly white icings that settle on top of the cake - it soaks deep into the cake!).


Mmmm! Now what I (and others) noticed about this pound cake was that it was the MOST DENSE pound cake any of us had ever had. I don't know if this was something wrong with my making the cake, or if it's how the cake was supposed to be. But, to be honest, I have NO complaints. I LOVE dense pound cake - I'm more a fan of dense cakes over light-and-fluffy cake any day!!!


And I have to say - the cake tasted EVEN BETTER knowing I grew the lemons used to make it.

RIP Meyer...

5 comments:

Peter said...

Light cakes have their time and place, but pound cake SHOULD be rich, I agree. I love the pattern from the cake pan!

FinnyKnits said...

GORGEOUS CAKE!!!

That pound cake recipe is ridiculous. So awesome. Dense, rich BUT NOT TOO RICH and delicious.

Great job :) Just so you know, the rest of the recipes in there are equally as yum.

The lemon meringue? Don't even get me started. If it were a man...

Joe said...

Love the looks of this pound cake! I don't think you did anything wrong... they should be decadent and dense!

Jeph said...

Peter - that pan can take anything up a notch on the "fancy" scale!

Finny - trust me, lemon merinque or some sort of pavlova - I think I'll be making a nice eggy dish soon!

Joe - good to get confirmation on that! And hey, I LIKE dense! :)

the ginger tabby said...

yep, love the design!