Kitchen Alchemy

What can I say about lemon that I haven't said before? I've told the story of my mother's lemon tree that fruited three seasons of the year. And I think I've told the story of the minature lemon tree my husband and I were given for our wedding (which incidentally has fruited more lemons this year than we've ever had from it before). Lemon is one of those classic flavours that just cannot be outdone. It's up there with chocolate and vanilla in my opinion. When I was pregnant, I was surprised to find I craved lemon (and tomato). I would happily have eaten nothing else, which probably wouldn't have agreed with me since both are so high in acid. Yet those were the two flavours I wanted most. I've had friends say in the past that a vanilla cake with lemon icing is the next best thing to heaven. Lemon when it is allowed to retain it's simple nature is a beautiful thing in cooking. So all hail the humble lemon! Here is my mornng snack tribut

When I set up shop at the markets again this year, I decided a couple of different things on the table would help pique the interest of the Double Bay shoppers. I added gingerbread men for the kids and decided Melting Moments were a great option for mums to have with their coffee. I had tried out the recipe a few weeks before and my husband and I found them irrestible. The fat buttery biscuits with a gorgeous dob of lemony frosting in the middle. And they didn't take that long to make either, which as I found, was extremely important on production day. These biscuits are a classic in Australia. And I had customers who live in the USA saying they couldn't get them there. Well now you can just make your own. Ingredients 250g salt reduced butter 1.5 cups plain flour 1/2 cup pure icing sugar (powdered sugar) 2/3 cup corn flour 1 tsp finely grated lemon zest 1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees celcius. Line a large baking tray with bakiing paper and set aside. 2

There are many different sweets the people of Finland enjoy, but when it comes to birthdays one of my colleagues, who hails from that part of the world has told me, no celebration is complete without a kermakakku. ‘Kerma’ means cream and ‘kakku’ means cake. Together they mean cream cake – a layered sponge cake decorated with lashings of whipped cream and favourite fruits found in Finland. Raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, lingon berries and cloudberries are all common flavours for this indulgent dessert cake. I wanted to try making such a cake last year, and decided my birthday was a suitable occassion. The sponge cake was very easy to make (although when my colleague sampled mine he said the Finnish version was much more dry, thanks to their use of potato flour amongst other things). I worried this would be a cream heavy cake, but the piped cream up the sides was deceiving. My son and his friend scoffed this cake in minutes. And there was more than half a cake left o

I have been working with a recipe over the past weeks for the new book I'm writing. While its origin is Mexican, the biscuit it produces is so familiar to so many people from other cultures, I feel like I've stumbled on a universal biscuit base that could be converted to suit many purposes. Flush with a full stock of lemons, thanks to Janet at work, today I thought I would turn my recipe into Lemon Shortbread - a very easy variation on the original recipe and certainly, a very delicious one. I hope you agree! Ingredients 250g salt reduced butter 1/2 cup caster sugar 1 tsp lemon juice 1 tsp water 1 tblsp lemon zest 1/2 cup flaked almonds 1/2 cup ground almonds 2 cups plain flour 1. Combine the butter, sugar, lemon juice, water and lemon zest in the bowl of your Kitchenaid (I'm not going to pretend anybody owns any other mixer, okay?). Beat on sixth gear until the butter is pale and creamy. 2. Add the almonds and plain and mix on first gear until the ingredie

I have talked before about my desire to have an eternally fruiting lemon tree in my backyard. I do have a lemon tree, which I was given as a wedding present (well, my husband was given it too), but it spends most of the year ripening just one or two lemons. But Janet, at work - her lemon tree is a different story! She brought in two massive bags this week filled with gorgeous, ripe, almost orange lemons, and invited everyone to take as many as they wanted. I was lucky enough to score eight lemons. And I told everyone who took lemons too that if they wanted, they could give me their lemons and a jar and I would turn them into lemon curd. It's been some years since I made lemon curd, so today I thought I better turn the lemons I took into lemon curd so I can be sure I can fulfil my promise! Ingredients 140g butter 1 cup caster sugar 3 large eggs 200ml lemon juice 1 tblsp lemon zest 1. Melt the butter in the top of a double boiler. You can use one small saucepan sitti

In 2004 I had a grand vision of growing lemons in the back yard of my apartment building, and producing so much fruit, I’d be able to put the lemons in a big basket at the front steps and share them with everyone that lived around me. So I went to the plant nursery near my mother’s house and bought myself a young lemon tree. The tag said it would fruit three seasons of the year. This was very exciting news! I took the tree home and planted it on a mound of dirt in the corner of the back yard, which was theoretically communal, but which was only used by me. Each morning I came out onto my balcony and surveyed my fledgling lemon tree, and was overjoyed when it sprouted some blossoms. My dream of an abundance of lemons was on its way to coming true! Some weeks later I was entertaining friends from France. As I pointed proudly to where my lemon tree should have been, I was horrified to discover there was nothing left of it but a stick of a stump. Some person had cut my lemon tree off belo