In the Kitchen - Lemon Dream

"Hi Mom!" 

If my Mom is reading this, I know without a doubt her nose is crinkled and she's looking at her screen saying, "Lemons!! Yuck!". She grew up in a day and time when your parents hid the nasty taste of medicine by chasing it with a swallow of warm lemonade. From the stories she tells, she had to take a lot of medication and drink a lot of warm lemonade. If she'd done that to me, I'd feel the same way. She didn't and so I love lemons! 

Here's my beautiful Mom, Barbara, and the person you will most of the time hear me refer to as "Hubby". His name is Doug and he's pretty amazing. Doug does a lot of pretty important stuff behind the scenes here at She Makes Cupcakes. When I need something built...washed...tasted...he's my go-to-guy. He's also the guy who handles the invoices, keeps track of our calendar, and all the web stuff! Mom will be helping out on those days we have the big orders. She's our whatever needs-to-be-done person and my other taste tester!

Remember that post where I said I make mistakes in the kitchen? Remember that I also mentioned I would be very honest about them? Well here goes. 

Yesterday, I set out to try a new recipe on an order. Looked the recipe over...read the reviews on it...and set everything up to make my Lemon Dream cupcakes...their cake recipe...my interpretation of the flavor combinations and icings. The long and short of it...the end product was a disaster from five different directions! 

The cupcakes were flat and wet-tish and dense and just weird. They tasted magnificent...but there was no way these were leaving my kitchen as an order for our customers. With that being said...the honest moment out front first...let's talk about everything else that went right. 

The very first thing I did was grab the lemons and put them into the sink to wash. 

Honestly, they looked pretty clean. They weren't! We'll leave it at that. So just a BTW, when you're serving sliced lemons with your sweet tea...soak those babies first...pretty please! Anyway, hot water to cover...a bit of white vinegar and an easy scrub with a veggie brush...let them sit while you're preparing other things, and then rinse with cold water and pat dry. 

I needed quite a bit of juice and zest for the cupcake batter, the simple lemon syrup, and the icing. So my next task was to zest...aka use a fine grater...and get going. After 3 large lemons, I had one tablespoon...which is what I needed. 

Not very much for a lot of work. One tablespoon exactly!

Now if you have an electric juicer at home...you go girl...or guy! We don't. This is our wonderful, tech-free, handy-dandy, inherited juicer. 

It is vintage and very awesome to look at.  Let me repeat that...it is very awesome to look at. It's hard work to use. From the three large lemons I got 1/3 of a cup of lemon juice...which is what I needed. So glad I wasn't trying for lemonade. 

One other thing I used the lemon for was to create a simple syrup. I use this syrup to brush on the tops of the cupcakes once they're cool. It both seals in the moisture and gives another zing of flavor that'll make you smile. I put the water and sugar on to boil, add in the empty lemon peels from the juicing above, and then let them boil for about 10 minutes. Take out the peels, let the syrup cool and then add in 1/4 cup of lemon juice. Ready to brush on as soon as your cupcakes are cool. A note: the syrup had a slight bitter aftertaste from the peels. I added a splash of vanilla and it balanced the flavor out right away. 

Through the years, the question of sifting or no sifting comes into question. In my opinion, yes to sifting. Here in Houston we have heavy humidity. Anything in your pantry will be affected. I sift all of my dry ingredients after I measure them. Occasionally you will have a recipe that calls for you to sift first and measure. Most don't. 

I'm not going to write out a recipe today. I did redo the Lemon Dream Cupcakes and they came out yummy and beautiful. I used my basic butter vanilla cupcake recipe and added my lemons to it. Yes, we did have to re-juice some more lemons and grate some more zest, but it was well worth it. 

The icing had a wonderful balance of sour lemon and then the nice taste of the sweet raspberry just made it oh so nice. The cupcakes were moist with a nice crumb texture, excellent lemony flavor that had just enough sour, and held up well under the icing. What more can you ask from a recipe. 

A note about following recipes...online blogs do make typos. I know. I found out too late yesterday after I had followed it to the letter...kinda. If you ever question one of our procedures or recipes - shoot me a note. If it's a mistake, I'll change it quickly. If it's good, I'll explain it! Thanks so much for reading our blog. Don't forget to subscribe to get updates. 

Eat Dessert First,

Terri Milton 

She Makes Cupcakes