Braided Lemon Bread

After I saw this braided lemon bread on Smitten Kitchen, I couldn't get it out of my head. And I'm glad I didn't because it is stupendous. Completely gorgeous, not even difficult to make, so very delicious and extremely adaptable to whatever jam or filling you want to have.

I loved this filling of lemon curd and cream cheese. And no I did not make that neon yellow lemon curd, I bought it, which is a first for me. There's nothing wrong with taking short cuts in recipes but I always feel like I need to make curds from scratch. Except this time where I just wanted to get right to making the braid as soon as possible!

I'm really looking forward to trying different jams and fillings. Oh maybe a chocolate peanut butter filling?! Or pear and brie. Or feta and sun dried tomato and olives. Maybe this dough would be too sweet as is (with 1/4 cup sugar) for savoury applications, but I imagine it would be okay to reduce the sugar to 2 tbsp or something?

Please excuse the poorly lit photos I took in my kitchen of the process (seen below throughout the recipe) - our kitchen is in the back of the apartment near no windows. But I always like seeing the process of making baked goods and am especially in love with yeast bread process photos so had to share! And as you can tell I was completely obsessed with this bread so took tons of photos.

Also, I just discovered this fun website YeastSpotting. Where you can submit yeasted bread recipes you've made and then at the end of each week they compile a list (with pictures)! Very fun and a great place to get inspired for my next bread.

If this sounds good, you might also like:
Cinnamon Raisin Bread
Hot Crossed Buns
Croissant Pockets with Apricots and Brie
Milk Chocolate Cherry Twist

Braided Lemon Bread
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen who adapted from King Arthur Flour

Sponge
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) warm water
1 teaspoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
1/4 cup (1 ounce) unbleached all-purpose flour

Dough
Sponge (above)
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) sour cream or yogurt
1/4 cup (2 oz) unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs, 1 beaten for dough, 1 beaten with 1 teaspoon water for brushing bread
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups (10 5/8 ounces) all-purpose flour
Coarse sugar, for sprinkling

Lemon cream cheese filling
1/3 cup (2 1/2 ounces) cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons sour cream
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 cup lemon curd

Make sponge: In a small bowl, stir together the sponge ingredients.Loosely cover with plastic wrap, and set aside to proof for 10 to 15 minutes.

Combine the sponge, sour cream, butter, egg, sugar, salt and vanilla in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add flour and mix with the paddle attachment until the dough is a rough, shaggy mass. Switch to the dough hook and knead until a soft, smooth dough forms, about 5 to 6 minutes. Place the kneaded dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and allow to rise for 60 to 90 minutes, until quite puffy and nearly doubled.

Make the filling (while dough rises): Combine all the filling ingredients (except the lemon curd) in a small bowl, mixing until smooth and lump-free.

Prepare bread: Gently deflate the dough and roll it out on a very well floured counter to a 10″ x 15″ rectangle. Transfer rectangle to a large piece of parchment paper. With the side of your hand, lightly press two lines down the dough lengthwise, dividing it into three equal columns. Spread the cream cheese filling down the center section, leaving the top and bottom two inches free of filling. Spread the lemon curd over the cream cheese filling.

To form the mock braid, cut crosswise strips one inch apart down the length of the outer columns of you dough (the parts without filling). Make sure you have an equal amount of 1-inch strips down the right and left sides. Be careful not to cut your parchment paper; if you have a bench scraper, this is a great time to use it. Remove the four corner segments. To “braid”, begin by folding top flap down and bottom flap up over the filling. Lift the top dough strip and gently bring it diagonally across the filling. Repeat on the right side, and continue down the entire braid, alternating strips until you are out. You can tuck the last couple that hand off decoratively under the end of the braid.

Carefully transfer the dough and the parchment paper to a baking sheet. Cover loosely with plastic and set it aside to rise for 45 to 50 minutes, until quite puffy.

Bake bread: Preheat the oven to 375F. Brush the loaves with egg wash, and sprinkle with coarse sugar. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the loaves are golden brown. Remove from the oven and cool for 15 to 20 minutes before serving.

Lemon Lust Cake

I made this cake for my mom's birthday (almost 2 months ago now - I'm so behind with blogging about what I've made that I look at the photos and have no idea what it is, well that's only happened with some muffins I've made). Anyway, she loves lemon and buttercream icing (and lots of it), so I thought this cake would be a good choice. It's a lemon cake brushed with lemon syrup, filled with lemon cream cheese (cream cheese, whipped cream and lemon curd mmm) and iced with lemon buttercream. You can see why this is called the lemon lust cake! And yes of course the cake was very lemony. The star of the cake was definitely the lemon cream cheese filling, and the cake itself was pretty good but the lemon buttercream on the outside was, well, very very buttery. It's the kind of buttercream that's just butter plain mixed with stuff (in this case, lemon curd). If you eat the cake straight out of the fridge the icing is quite solid (as butter is). I much prefer Swiss meringue buttercream so I'd switch it for that next time.

Now that I'm looking at the photos of the cake I'm thinking I could've fancied it up a bit with some candied lemon slices. But I'm moreso the type to not care too much about how it looks as long as it tastes good. Though candied lemon slices might be delicious - I should make them one day. Looking at the pictures of the slice of cake, it makes me think of those old cars that have long hoods and front ends that stick out on top.

If this sounds good, you might also like:
Strawberry Cream Cake
Creamy Coconut Cake
Lemon Cheesecake
Coconut Lemon Bundt Cake

Lemon Lust Cake
Adapted from The Cake Book

Split the lemon curd evenly for the filling and the icing.

Lemon Cake
3 cups (342 g) cake flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks/8 oz) unsalted butter, softened
1 3/4 cups (350 g) granulated sugar
4 large eggs
2 tsp finely grated lemon zest
1/4 cup strained freshly squeezed lemon juice
2/3 cup whole milk

Lemon Curd
8 large egg yolks
1 1/4 cups (250 g) granulated sugar
2 tsp finely grated lemon zest
3/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
pinch of salt
1/2 cup (4 oz) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons

Lemon Cream Cheese Filling
3/4 cup heavy cream
4 ounces (113 g) cream cheese, softened
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 recipe lemon curd

Lemon Soaking Syrup
1/3 cup (80 mL) water
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup granulated sugar

Lemon Buttercream
1 1/2 cups (12 oz) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 recipe Lemon Curd
Pinch of salt

Make the lemon curd:
1. Set a fine mesh sieve over a medium bowl and set aside. In a medium heavy nonreactive saucepan, whisk together the egg yolks, and sugar until blended. Stir in the lemon zest and juice, salt, and butter and cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until the mixture thickens, 7 to 10 minutes (do not let the custard boil, or it will curdle). The mixture should leave a path on the back of a wooden spoon when you draw your finger across it. Immediately strain the mixture through the sieve, pressing it through with a rubber spatula.

2. Set the bowl containing the lemon mixture in a large bowl filled about one-third of the way with ice water (be careful that the water doesn't splash into the lemon mixture). Stir the mixture frequently until it is slightly chilled, about 15 minutes. Put the curd into an airtight container with a lid and refrigerate until ready to use.

Make the cake:
3. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350F. Grease the bottom and sides of two 9 inch round cake pans. Line the bottom of the pans with parchment paper.

4. Whisk together the cake flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl. Whisk to combine, and set aside.

5. In the bowl of an electric mixer, using the paddle attachment, beat the butter at medium speed until creamy, about 30 seconds. Gradually add the sugar and beat at high speed until well blended and light, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Reduce the speed to medium and add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition and mixing until blended. Beat in the lemon zest and lemon juice until blended. Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating it with the milk in two additions and mixing just until blended. Scrape the batter into the prepared pans, dividing it evenly, and smooth the tops with a rubber spatula.

6. Bake the cakes for 22 to 25 minutes, until they are golden brown around the edges and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool the cakes in the pans on wire racks for 15 minutes.

7. Invert the cakes onto the wire racks and let cool completely.

Make the filling:
8. In the bowl of an electric mixer, using the whisk attachment, beat the heavy cream at high speed until firm peaks form. Transfer the whipped cream to a smaller bowl, cover and refrigerate.

9. In the same mixer bowl (no need to wash it), using the paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese at medium speed until very creamy, about 2 minutes. On low speed, beat in the vanilla extract. Add the lemon curd and beat at medium speed until well blended and smooth, about 1 minute. Remove the bowl from the mixer stand and, using a rubber spatula, gently fold in the whipped cream until almost completely blended. Cover the bowl and refrigerate while you make the syrup and buttercream.

Make the syrup:
10. In a small pot, combine the water, lemon juice, and sugar and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally to dissolve the sugar. Remove the pan from the heat and set aside at room temperature.

Make the buttercream:
11. In the bowl of an electric mixer, using the paddle attachment, beat the butter at medium speed until creamy and light, about 2 minutes. At medium speed, gradually add the lemon curd, a large spoonful at a time, then add the salt and beat at medium-high speed until creamy and light, about 1 1/2 minutes. Set aside at room temperature while you assemble the cake.

Assemble the cake:
12. Using a long serrated knife, trim off the domed tops of the cakes so that they are even (save any cake pieces and crumbs for snacking). Cut each cake horizontally into 2 layers. Reserve one of the flat bottom layers for the top of the cake. Place another layer cut side up on a cardboard cake round or flat serving plate. Generously brush with some of the lemon syrup. Spoon a scant cup of the filling onto the cake and, suing a small offset metal spatula, spread it into an even layer, leaving a 1/2 inch border around the edge of the cake. Top with another cake layer and brush it with more syrup. Top with another scant cup of filling. Repeat with another layer, more syrup, and the remaining filling. Brush the cut side of the reserved cake layer with the remaining syrup. Place the layer cut side down on top of the cake.

13. Frost the sides and top of the cake with the buttercream. Serve the cake or refrigerate it. If it has been refrigerated, let stand at room temperature for about 45 minutes before serving.

Strawberry Lemon Sunflower Seed Muffins

I made these muffins a while ago when I bought a huge thing of strawberries that turned out to not be really great (which, as some of you might remember, is when I also made the chocolate strawberry loaf). I don't often add berries to muffins because I find they make them so wet, and that's exactly what happened with the first batch I attempted of these. The second batch I used less soy milk and it balanced out a lot better. The taste was delicious, and I especially loved the crunch of the sunflower seeds.

If this sounds good, you might also like:
Whole Wheat Orange Spice Muffins
Chocolate Strawberry Loaf
Coconut Lemon Bundt Cake
Applesauce-Oat Bran Muffins

Strawberry Lemon Sunflower Seed Muffins
Greatly adapted from Vegan with a Vengeance

If you can't get light spelt flour, use light whole wheat flour or another kind of flour. You can use all whole wheat flour instead but the muffin will be a bit denser.

1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup light spelt flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup canola oil
1/4 cup soy milk
6 ounces low fat vanilla yogurt (use soy yogurt to make vegan)
2 tsp vanilla extract
zest of 1 lemon
1 cup chopped strawberries
1/2 cup sunflower seeds

Preheat oven to 400F. Spray a twelve muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large bolw, sift together the flours, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together the maple syrup, oil, soy milk, yogurt, vanilla and lemon zest. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry; halfway through mixing fold in the strawberries and sunflower seeds.

Divide the batter among the 12 muffin cups. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until a toothpick in the center comes out clean.

Spaghetti with Spinach Cream Sauce

This is another successful recipe I've made from New Vegetarian Cuisine. Admittedly the recipe calls for low fat or reduced fat ricotta cheese but I really can't stand low fat cheese. The taste is so muted and bland and I always end up adding more so I may as well just eat the real thing and enjoy it! I modified this recipe to add in extra vegetables (zucchini and asparagus) and less pasta. Which reminds me that I should go buy some more asparagus while it's around - and corn! Mmmm. Oh and I should mention that this is not your typical heavy cream sauce - it's a lighter version made with skim milk and ricotta cheese.

When I saw Abby like this it took a second to realize where her head was.

If this sounds good, you might also like:
Asparagus and Feta Pasta
Spinach Artichoke Heart Dip
Black Bean Chilaquile
Spinach Balls

Spaghetti with Spinach Cream Sauce
Adapted from New Vegetarian Cuisine

Serves 3-4.

1/2 cup ricotta cheese
2 tsp grated lemon peel
1/8 tsp grated nutmeg
1 cup skim milk, divided
2 tsp oil
1/2 cup diced onions
1 box (10 oz) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
1/2 zucchini, sliced into half moons
15 asparagus spears, cut into 1-2" pieces
1 1/2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
7 ounces whole wheat spaghetti
Salt to taste

1. In a food processor, blend the ricotta, lemon peel, nutmeg and 1 tablespoon of the milk.

2. In a 2 quart saucepan over medium heat, melt the oil. Stir in the onions; cook, stirring frequently, for 4 to 5 minutes, or until tender. Stir in the ricotta mixture, spinach, zucchini, asparagus, Parmesan and the remaining milk. Cook, stirring constantly, for 4 to 6 minutes, or until the liquid is reduced by half.

3. Meanwhile, in a large pot of boiling water, cook the spaghetti for 8 to 10 minutes, or until tender. Drain, Place in a serving bowl. Add the spinach sauce; toss to mix.

Lemon Miso Tofu & Eggplant

Here we have my new favourite way to eat tofu, and my discovery that yes I can cook eggplant at home and it will taste good. I don't know why I was always so afraid of eggplant because it's really delicious.

This is one of those amazing tofu recipes that you could use to try and convert non tofu believers, but on the other hand - why not just hoard its deliciousness all for yourself?

In other news, we just adopted a kitten! She's 7 months old and we've had her for a week now.

Lemon Miso Tofu and Eggplant
Adapted from Rebar: Modern Food Cookbook

You can either use the suggested eggplant and tofu, or do no eggplant and double the amount of tofu yum!

1 tbsp minced lemon zest
2 tbsp miso
3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 tsp sesame oil
4 tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp minced ginger
1 tbsp wasabi powder
1 block extra firm tofu
2 Japanese eggplant

Press and drain the tofu. Prepare the glaze by whisking together the first 8 ingredients in a small bowl (minced lemon zest through wasabi powder). Marinate overnight, then strain through a sieve to remove the solids. Next, cut tofu into 1/2-inch cubes. Arrange them in a single layer in a shallow dish with sides. Pour half of the glaze over the tofu, toss to coat and marinate in the fridge for at least 1 hour, preferably overnight.

Slice eggplants into 1/2" thick coins and pour remaining glaze over the eggplant. Toss to coat and let marinate for 30 min.

Preheat the oven to 375F. Prepare a baking sheet with oil, parchment paper or whatever you want. Evenly spread out the tofu and eggplant (you might need two baking sheets for this if you want them evenly spread out). Bake for 20 minutes, or until the eggplanta nd tofu are golden and cooked through. Halfway through baking, flip the tofu and eggplant. Serve hot and use leftover glaze for dipping.

Coconut Lemon Bundt Cake

My first food blog post from our new apartment! However I still have some things I made from before so I'll be posting about those first. I'm just really happy that our internet is working AND the new monitor is working. Not sure how long it will be working for though as it seems to be kind of busted. I'm going away this weekend for a wedding and I'm feeling some food blog separation anxiety. But I'm looking forward to having more time for food blog things next week. Anyway, now let's talk about food.

I was all set to make the maple pancake loaf from Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More and I'd chopped up the nuts, then went looking for the maple syrup. No maple syrup? Baking tragedy. So I quickly scanned through a few cookbooks and came across this lemon coconut bundt cake. Thankfully lemons and coconut are something I always have on hand, and coconut is one of my favourite things so it seemed like an okay consolation baked good. Well it turned out to be more than that! The smell of it baking made me so eager for them to come out of the oven. Oh and this was the first that I used my mini bundt pans. Suffice it to say, you are not suppose to completely fill the bundt pans. Yes I should know this from making muffins and cakes but when I have more batter than baking pan, I usually end up putting it all in there and hoping it doesn't explode over the sides (and it always does and I always freak out a bit. Maybe one day I'll learn.) So we can call these bundt cakes lemon coconut flying saucers. As it turned out, the explodey parts were delicious because they got hard like really delicious muffin tops.

Lemon and coconut are really such a great pairing, and they were perfectly balanced in this bundt. The cakes were so moist, oh and did I mention that they're vegan? I want to experiment more with vegan baking. So far all of my healthy muffins are vegan, but I haven't tried much beyond that. Well as many vegan bakers out there will not be surprised to hear, these bundt cakes far surpassed many non vegan baked goods. The only unfortunate thing was that they were a bit oily - not that that stopped me from eating them. I bet these would be delicious with white chocolate. The perfect summer afternoon snack!

David Lebovitz was saying on his blog about how you shouldn't zest a lemon onto a plate and then carefully measure it out by putting it into a measuring spoon. Instead you should not worry about exact measurements and just zest directly into whatever it's being mixed into so you don't lose the precious lemon/citrus oil. That's what I tried this time and I have no idea if it really made a difference but the bundt cakes were tasty.

If this sounds good, you might also like:
Matcha Coconut Madeleines
Lemon Poppyseed Muffins
Chocolate Oatmeal Coconut Cookies
bill's Coconut Bread

Coconut Lemon Bundt Cake
Slightly adapted from Veganomicon

You can make one 8" or 10" bundt cake, about 12 mini bundt cakes, or 15 muffins. (These are my guesses, except for the large bundt cake, because for me it made 6 muffins and 6 mini bundt cakes.)

Wet
1 2/3 cups sugar
2/3 cup canola oil
14 oz (400 mL) can coconut milk
1/4 cup soy milk
1/4 cup lemon juice
zest of 2 lemons
2 tsp vanilla extract

Dry
3 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups shredded unsweetened coconut

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease whatever kind of baking pan you're using (bundt pan, muffin tin).

In a large mixing bowl, combine the wet ingredients. Stir to combine.

In another bowl, mix the dry ingredients (not including the coconut). Mix the dry ingredients into the wet in batches, mixing well after each addition. Fold in the coconut.

Pour the batter into the baking pan(s). Bake for 1 hour (check at 30 minutes if using smaller baking pans), or until knife inserted in cake comes out clean. When you remove them from the oven, let the cakes cool on a rack for 10 minutes before flipping the cakes out.

TWD: The Most Extraordinary French Lemon Cream Tart

Another delicious week participating in the Tuesdays with Dorie challenge! This week was a lemon tart and particularly a lemon tart that I've had my eye on for a while. I'm going to try and keep this short since I'm a bit bogged down with school right now.

I halved the lemon cream (but forgot to half the butter the first time, resulting in a very hard and for some reason iron-tasting "cream" so had to remake it), but didn't half the tart dough. I now have a couple of extra little tarts waiting in the freezer, hoping that someone picks another tart soon. I absolutely loved the tart shell itself - it was like a cookie. And it was the easiest tart I've made, which is great for my rolling dough out fear. All you do is press the crumbly "dough" into the tart pans and out come these wonderful delicious tarts. I will definitely be using this tart dough recipe again. (Oh and I finally got the chance to use these cute tartlet pans!)

As for the lemon cream, I didn't love it. It was beautiful and it had a great texture. And certainly it was good, but it just wasn't my favourite thing. Other people liked it, and I think it's the perfect thing to make for a lemon lover.

Check out the other Tuesdays with Dorie bakers to see their lemon tarts! Edit: I forgot to mention that Mary from Staring From Scratch chose the recipe this week.

Other TWD challenges I've done:
Russian Grandmother's Apple Pie-Cake
Pecan Sour Cream Biscuits
Orange Berry Muffins

The Most Extraordinary French Lemon Cream Tart
Adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours

1 cup sugar
Grated zest of 3 lemons
4 large eggs
3/4 c fresh lemon juice (from 4-5 lemons)
2 sticks plus 5 tbsp butter (10 1/2 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon size pieces, at room temperature
1 9-inch tart shell made with sweet tart dough, fully baked (see below)

Getting ready:
Have a instant-read thermometer, a strainer and a blender or food processor ready. Bring a few inches of water to a simmer in a saucepan.

Put the sugar and zest in a large metal bowl that can be set over the pan of simmering water. Off the heat, rub the sugar and zest together between your fingers until the sugar is moist, grainy, and very aromatic. Whisk in the eggs, followed by the lemon juice.

Set the bowl over the pan and start stirring with the whisk as soon as the mixture fees tepid to the touch. Cook the lemon cream until it reaches 180 degrees F. As you whisk- you whisk constantly to keep the eggs from scrambling- you’ll see that the cream will start out light and foamy, then the bubbles will get bigger, and then, as it gets closer to 180F, it will start to thicken and the whisk will leave tracks. Heads up at this point- the tracks mean the cream is almost ready. Don’t stop whisking or checking the temperature, and have patience- depending on how much heat you’re giving the cream, getting to temp may take as long as 10 minutes.

As soon as it reaches 180F, remove the cream from the heat and strain it into the container of the lender (or food processor); discard the zest. Let the cream stand, stirring occasionally, until it cools to 140 degrees F, about 10 minutes.

Turn the blender to high (or turn on the processor) and, with the machine going, add the butter about 5 pieces at a time. Scrape down the sides of the container as needed as you incorporate the butter. Once the butter is in, keep the machine going- to get the perfect light, airy texture of lemon-cream dreams, you must continue to bend the cream for another 3 minutes. If your machine protests, and gets a bit too hot, work in 1-minute intervals, giving the machine a little rest between beats.

Pour the cream into a container, cover tightly and refrigerate at least 4 hours, or overnight. (The cream will keep in the fridge for 4 days or, tightly sealed, in the freezer for up to 2 months; thaw it overnight in the refrigerator.)

When you are ready to assemble the tart, just whisk the cream to loosen it and spoon it into the tart shell. Serve the tart, or refrigerate until needed.

Sweet Tart Dough
Adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick plus 1 tablespoon (9 tablespoons) very cold (or frozen) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg yolk

Put the flour, confectioner’s sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse a couple of times to combine. Scatter the pieces of butter over the dry ingredients and pulse until the butter is coarsely cut in - you should have some pieces the size of oatmeal flakes and some the size of peas. Stir the yolk and add it a little at a time, pulsing after each addition. When the egg is in, process in long pulses - about 10 seconds each - until the dough, which will look granular soon after the egg is added, forms clumps and curds. Just before you reach this stage, the sound of the machine working the dough will change - heads up. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and, very lightly and sparingly, knead the dough just to incorporate any dry ingredients that might have escaped mixing.

Butter a 9-inch fluted tart pan with a removable bottom. Press the dough evenly over the bottom and up the sides of the pan, using all but one little piece of dough, which you should save in the refrigerator to patch any cracks after the crust is baked. Don’t be too heavy-handed - press the crust in so that the edges of the pieces cling to one another, but not so hard that the crust loses its crumbly texture. Freeze the crust for at least 30 minutes, preferably longer, before baking.

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375F.

Put the tart pan on a baking sheet and bake the crust for 25 minutes. Carefully remove the foil. If the crust has puffed, press it down gently with the back of a spoon. For a partially baked crust, patch the crust if necessary, then transfer the crust to a cooling rack (keep it in its pan).

To Fully Bake the Crust: Bake for another 8 minutes or so, or until it is firm and golden brown. Transfer the tart pan to a rack and cool the crust to room temperature before filling.

To Patch a Partially or Fully Baked Crust, if Necessary: If there are any cracks in the baked crust, patch them with some of the reserved raw dough as soon as you remove the foil. Slice of a thin piece of the dough, place it over the crack, moisten the edges and very gently smooth the edges into the baked crust. If the tart will not be baked again with its filling, baking for another 2 minutes or so, just to take the rawness off the patch.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

I don't have a lot of time to do food blog related things (updating my own, making food to post about, and reading other people's blogs) as school is becoming even more time consuming! But I'm really trying to take some time here and there to update and read blogs. Actually if I'm not in a great mood, reading food blogs always immediately makes me feel better. So thank you everybody for your wonderful blogs - I'm just sorry I don't have more time to read them all and not miss entries.

Anyway, this is just a short post about the first thing I baked from Dorie Greenspan's Baking From My Home To Yours (the infamous cookbook that every food blogger seems to really love so of course I had to go buy it). I bought poppy seeds a while ago but never got around to doing anything with them so when I came across her recipe for lemon poppyseed muffins I knew that was what I should make. And these muffins did not disappoint.

For a while I was going through a healthy muffin baking phase, but of course I will always love the non-healthy more cake like muffins (which I was previously under the delusion that they were good for me since you know, how can a muffin be bad for you?) Dorie's muffins were so delicious. The base has sour cream in it, which makes for such a nice dense cake (I mean muffin), my favourite kind. I will be using this recipe again and again, trying out variations (speaking of which, I love how in Dorie's cookbook she often suggests variations on every recipe.) The first variation I want to try (which definitely cannot be mistaken for a healthy muffin unfortunately) is white chocolate earl grey.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
Adapted from Baking From My Home To Yours (Dorie Greenspan)

2/3 cup sugar
grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 tablespoons poppy seeds

Preheat the oven to 400F. Prepare 12 molds in a muffin pan with butter or liners.

In a large bowl, rub the sugar and lemon zest together with your fingertips until the sugar is moist and the fragrance of lemon strong. Whisk in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, thoroughly whisk the sour cream, eggs, vanilla, lemon juice and melted butter together. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and, with the whisk or a rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to blend. A few lumps are okay, don't overmix. Stir in the poppy seeds. Divide the batter evenly among the muffins cups.

Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, or until the tops are golden and a thin knife inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 5 minutes before carefully removing each muffin from its mold.

Panko-Crusted Tofu Cutlets with Lemon-Caper Sauce

I know that this picture does not look so awesome and it's possible you're thinking the food itself doesn't look so great either, but I'm telling you it is! This is another recipe I tried out from one of my quick vegetarian meal cookbooks, Quick Fix Vegetarian, though unfortunately this was not a quick meal. It was actually kind of aggravating to make when I just wanted something fast.

Nevertheless, it turned out very tasty. You're supposed to coat slices of tofu in panko (Japanese bread crumbs that I've wanted to try out forever) and then pan fry them (and this was supposed to be a healthy cookbook?) Well the panko didn't want to stick to the tofu in the way the recipe suggested it would, so that part of the recipe was not so successful. Part of that could be due to my weak frying skills. The incredibly delicious and successful part was the sauce though! Oh what a wonderful wonderful sauce. I really wasn't expecting much from it but it far surpassed any expectations and made the longer preparation time worth it.

There was something so tasty about the combination of flavours - wine, onions, lemon. Next time I would chop the capers though as getting a bite of one is a bit too much for me, but I do like what they add to the sauce. And I know I could more finely chop my onions but I don't have a lot of patience to finely chop vegetables, especially when the knives we have aren't that sharp (ie. if I'm chopping leeks, I have to saw through them). I wouldn't make this exact recipe again but I will definitely make the sauce again. Maybe I'll use it on baked tofu, or over mashed potatoes, or sweet potatoes mmm. Let me know if you have a good idea for what I can do with this sauce!

Panko-Crusted Tofu Cutlets with Lemon-Caper Sauce
slightly modified from Quick Fix Vegetarian (Robin Robertson)

serves 2 as main or 4 as part

2 tablespoons tahini (sesame paste)
1/4 cup water
salt & freshly ground black pepper
2 cups panko bread crumbs
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus additional as needed
1 pound extra-firm tofu, cut into thin slices
1/4 cup onions, minced
2 tablespoons capers, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup vegetable broth
2 tablespoons margarine/butter
juice of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley, plus additional for garnish

Combine the tahini and water in a shallow bowl until blended. Season with salt and pepper and set aside. Place the panko in a shallow bowl and set aside.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Season the tofu slices with salt and pepper to taste, then dip them into the tahini mixture and then into the panko crumbs. Fry the tofu on hot oil, turning once, lightly browned, working in batches as necessary. Remove the tofu from the skillet and keep warm.

In the same pan, heat the remaining 1 tablespoon oil. Add the onions and cook until softened, about 2 minutes. Add the capers, white wine, and vegetable broth and reduce by one-quarter. Stir in the margarine, lemon juice, and the 2 tablespoons parsley. Add salt and pepper to taste. Pour the sauce over the tofu and garnish with parsley.

My notes: I didn't end up using all of the panko, or even half of them so I would just pour out a bit to start and add more as needed. I also didn't use up all of the water/tahini paste, so you could try halving that as well. The paste was very watery so perhaps add more tahini than the recipe calls for, which will hopefully help the panko stick to the tofu.

The Best Gnocchi Ever In Existence

As I was looking at the pictures I took of the lemon ricotta gnocchi I made, I was drooling again. These gnocchi were so insanely delicious, and I'm not exaggerating at all. I found them on Brilynn's blog Jumbo Empanadas, who got the recipe from Jaden of Jaden's Steamy Kitchen (lots of beautiful food photos).

I've never made gnocchi before even though it's something I love and have been talking about making for a long time. As with other unfamiliar food things, I was scared that I would screw it up. I feared that the dough (usually made with potato, flour and egg, such as in the recipe on 101 Cookbooks that I want to try) would be dry or crumbly or the gnocchi would be gummy once cooked. Not so with the lemon ricotta gnocchi. They were so easy to make, full of flavour and so tender - the perfect gnocchi texture.

Typically gnocchi seems to be boiled, but I definitely think that pan fried is the most delicious way to eat it. Perhaps especially with this particular gnocchi since it's so tender on the inside, and then you have that bit of nice hard exterior. I had never thought about pan frying gnocchi until I had it in a restaurant a couple of years ago and after that I was hooked.

Pan-Fried Lemon-Ricotta Gnocchi
(Adapted from Jaden's Steamy Kitchen)

1 cup ricotta
1/2 cup parmesan cheese (plus extra reserved for garnishing)
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon lemon zest (plus extra reserved for garnishing)
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 tablespoon chopped parsley (plus extra reserved for garnishing)
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil

1. Combine ricotta, parmesan, yolk, zest, parsley and salt in large bowl. Mix well. Sprinkle half of the flour on the mixture, gently turn with spatula a few times to incorporate. Dump mixture on clean, lightly floured countertop. Sprinkle remaining flour on top of the mixture. Gently knead with your fingertips, just bringing together the mixture until flour is incorporated through. This only should take a minute or two. Any longer and you will be over-kneading. (If you are using skim milk ricotta - you may have to use more flour, as there is more water content in skim ricotta.)

2. Divide dough into 4 parts. Take one part and roll into a long, 1" diameter log. Cut gnocchi into 1" pieces.

3. Heat skillet over medium-high heat. Add butter and olive oil. when butter is just lightly browned, add gnocchi in single layer. Fry on one side for 2 minutes, flip. Fry other side for 1-2 minutes. Timing really depends on how big/thick your gnocchi is. Do a taste test - do you taste flour? Not done yet. Serve with a sprinkling of lemon zest, parmesan and parsley.