Lemon Poppy Seed Thins

Lemon and lime. They just aren't the same.  Or are they? Never gave it much thought really! Thick skin, thin skin, yellow and green, tart, sweeter, small and big.  Most of us here are more familiar with the small, thin skinned ones.  Lemon, oops, lime rice, lime juice, lime pickle are so much part of our culinary culture.  I am just opening my eyes to lemon and lemon based desserts.  When the sister visited in July, I pestered her to carry some lemons for me across the seas. Lemons of all things !? Well ! The exasperated busy doctor made a last minute trip to the supermarket to get them as fresh as she could get for me. 

Aromatic and bright hued, they looked gorgeous indeed! Wish they were as commonplace here as well. Snugly wrapped in cling film, they sat in the fridge much longer than I meant them to. Worried they might lose their charm, I hastened to make some Lemon Thins from my favorite cookie book Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Cookies.  In contrast to the much smaller thin skinned ones we get here, the lemons gave their zest and juice so generously! Times when I wish I had more than just a passing interest in gardening!

These cookies, Medrich claims, are more lemony than most. The recipe is from her friend Maya Klein, hence the name Maya's Lemon Thins. She reduces the lemon juice, concentrating the flavor, thereby producing buttery, tender-crisp thin cookies with a pleasant lemony taste. If you love all things lime and lemon, you must give these a try! I made these with lime as well and they taste just as good, but be sure you use the freshest and best you can find.

Ingredients : To make sixty-four 2 1/2 inch cookies.  

Freshly squeezed lemon / lime juice - 60 ml / 1/4 cup 

Unsalted butter, soft and cut into pieces - 170 grams / 1.5 sticks / 12 tablespoons

All purpose flour - 315 grams / 11.25 ounces

Baking soda - 1/4 teaspoon

Egg whole - one / 48 grams 

Egg yolk - one / 18 grams 

Vanilla Sugar - 200 grams / 1 cup ( I use powdered)

Freshly grated lemon zest - 1 tablespoon plus one teaspoon

Salt - 1/4 teaspoon

Method : Mise en place. 

Whisk together the flour and baking soda. Set aside.

In a heavy sauce pan, heat the lemon juice on medium heat till it becomes thick and syrupy and reduces to 1 tablespoon. This will take hardly anytime, so stick around. Measure it sooner than later, you can always put it back on heat to reduce further if needed. Turn off the heat. 

Add the butter, stir till it melts. I have cooled this and then whisked in the zest. 

In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the egg, egg yolk and sugar till homogeneous. Whisk in the butter mixture.  I find my tiny whisk very handy here.

Tip in the flour. Using  a spatula, stir until just incorporated. The dough will be very very soft. Wrap it in clingfilm and refrigerate at least 20 minutes. Once you refrigerate the dough, you can store it for up to 2 days. The dough will firm up. You want it firm enough to roll out easily without it being too hard. If you refrigerate longer, keep portions of the dough out at room temperature till it is fairly firm, but soft enough to roll easily. 

(After the first 20 minutes of chilling, Alice directs to divide the dough into 4 portions, roll each piece 1/16 inch thick between 2 sheets of plastic or wax paper. Slide a cookie sheet under each plastic sheet, refrigerate till firm, cut and bake) Since I found the dough too tender to to do this,  I have divided the dough into smaller portions and rolled out the chilled dough.

Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment. 

Take out one small portion of the dough from the fridge. Lightly dust your counter. Carefully, roll the dough thin, about 2 mm.  Cut the cookies with a 2 1/2 inch cookie cutter. Transfer the cut outs to one sheet, chill briefly (about 20 minutes) and then bake them on another lined sheet. I find my large and small metal dough scrapers very useful for lifting the rolled dough and transferring the cookies to the sheet. 

Re-roll scraps.  When ready to bake, pre-heat oven to 200 C / 400 F. Carefully transfer the cookies to the lined sheet, spacing them 1 inch apart. Bake for about 6-7 minutes or till golden around the edges. Watch carefully as they burn quickly. A test batch will tell you the exact baking time. Cookies crisp up as they cool. 

Can store the cookies air-tight for at least  a week. The dough freezes well Alice says, which is an added bonus. 

Variations: 

Lemon Poppy Seed Thins : Add 1/4 cup of poppy seeds to the flour mixture.

Lemon Ginger Thins - Omit the lemon juice and the boiling step. Melt the butter and add 2 tablespoons finely grated ginger. Mix one teaspoon ground ginger with the flour and baking soda. Proceed as directed.

Dainty, crisp and lemony, don't you want these in your cookie jar?

Lemon & Pistachio Baby Bundt Cakes - And Meeting Kate Bracks!

Receiving invites for food related events and promotions happens now and then if you are a food blogger. Now receiving an invite to meet Kate Bracks, winner of MasterChef Australia 2011 is something that doesn't happen everyday! MasterChef Australia's contestants from all walks of life made the world sit up and take notice as they morphed from cooking amateur style food to gourmet class food, presented with elan - all under pressure and the watchful eyes of George, Gary and Matt Preston. Hope for folk like us that there is a  possibility that you can cook and bake like a pro sans any formal training!

Kate Bracks, testament to ordinary people doing extraordinary things out of passion, discovering their true potential and achieving super success. A mother of three, previously a school teacher in New South Wales, Australia, Kate became a household name with MasterChef Australia 2011. She had considerable following even as one of the contestants in the phenomenal television series. Months spent away from family, husband and kids, the most difficult choice a wife and mother can make. Kate's very supportive husband urged her to enter the contest and boy, did she make him proud!! From wife-mother-teacher-homecook to world famous celebrity, television chef, author and so much more! Kudos Kate!

It was indeed a pleasure to meet her at Marriot, Whitefield last month. I know this comes a bit late, but then what is it that they say about being late better than never?  Watching her in action, it was hard to remain unaffected by her infectious energy.  We also got to taste some scrumptious Raspberry, Chocolate and hazelnut muffins The Dessert Queen baked for us!

MasterChef Australia, says Kate, made her pay as much attention to the textures and balance of flavors as the taste of food. Crispy with creamy, soft with crunchy, sweet, salt and tang - that's food for you! Here is one of the recipes from Kate's book The Sweet Life. Soft, sweet and tangy baby lemon cakes with the mild crunch of pistachios brushed generously with sweet hot syrup... they were dainty and delicious with a lovely crumb! Oh! Is this me? Am not much of a lime/lemon in desserts person, but loved these Kate! I had to stop myself from pouring some chilled vanilla bean crème anglaise over the bundts and let it pool around the bottom ...yes, that would have been even more delish!

Lemon Pistachio Baby Bundt Cakes  From  here . Kate's recipe has coconut flakes in it, I have used pistachios instead. The other minor changes I made, a slight reduction in the sugar and a tiny bit of baking soda I sneaked in. I have halved the original recipe and the batter gave me about 12 mini cakes. If making the batter with double the below recipe, you can also bake it in an 8'' round tin, preferably spring form says Kate.

Be sure to use fresh lemons for the juice and zest. Don't be scared of pouring the hot syrup on the hot cakes. Don't absolutely let anything (not even the pictures!) stop you from tasting these as soon as they turn barely warm...that's when they are at their irresistible best!

Lemon & Pistachio Baby Bundt Cakes

Ingredients:
The Cake
All purpose flour - 105 grams
Baking powder - 1 teaspoon + 1/8 teaspoon
Baking soda - 1/8 teaspoon
Salt - 1/8 teaspoon

             OR
112 grams Self Rising Flour

Unsalted butter, at room temperature - 60 grams
Superfine sugar - 85 grams, approximately 7 tablespoons, read note (Kate uses 1/2 cup/ 100 grams caster sugar)
Eggs - 72 grams / 1 1/2 large
Zest of one lemon - about a teaspoon

Vanilla extract - 1/2 teaspoon
Lemon juice - 1 tablespoon

Fresh thick yogurt, lightly whisked (or sour cream) - 6 tablespoons

Sliced, raw pistachios - 1/4 cup ( I am going to make this mandatory!)


The syrup (please read note)
Water - 3 tablespoons
Lemon juice - 1 tablespoon (or more water if you do not want the tang)
Sugar - 3 tablespoons

To Serve
Crème anglaise, chilled or whipped cream and fresh blueberries.

• Getting ready : Preheat oven to 180 degrees C / 350 degrees F.  Generously grease your mini bundt pan (mine is about 5 tablespoons capacity) or any other mini molds, flour lightly, tap to shake off the excess. Sprinkle some of the sliced pistachios inside.  Reserve some for garnish. Set aside. 
• Sift the flour, baking powder, soda and salt thrice. Whisk together the lemon juice and zest in a small cup. Measure out the ingredients for the syrup directly into a saucepan, ready to go on the heat as soon as the cakes come out of the oven.
• In a medium sized bowl, cream the butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy. I did this on speed 3 of my hand mixer for about 5 minutes. 
• On speed 1, add the egg in 2 additions, beating till fully incorporated (about 30 seconds) before you add the remaining egg. Beat another 30 seconds.
• Keep the speed low, add the lime juice, vanilla and zest.
• Fold in the self-rising flour in two additions, alternating with the yogurt..
• The batter will be of normal cake batter consistency, neither thick nor nor thin.
• Spoon into the prepared tin. Sprinkle the remaining pistachios. Bake for 15-16 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
• Meanwhile bring the water, juice and sugar in a small saucepan and cook over low-medium heat until the sugar has dissolved. As soon as the cakes are removed from the oven, pierce each randomly 6-8 times with a fine skewer or toothpick and spoon the hot syrup on the top. Let cool for a minute, invert and spoon more syrup on the bottom of the cakes. 
• Remove the cakes on to the serving platter, serve warm with cream and berries or with chilled vanilla crème anglaise. 
• The syrup soaked cakes were terrific warm, though they were still delicious the next day.  If you wish, you could omit the syrup and they should still taste great!

Please note: Use more sugar in the batter if not using any syrup. Kate uses 1/3 cup water, 150g (3/4 cup) sugar for the double the above recipe. You could make it to your taste and the amount of sugar you have used in the cakes.

Picture courtesy Nandita Iyer

It was wonderful and truly inspiring to meet you Kate! Thanks to you, these little cakes will be made quite often in my kitchen!