Luscious lemon (or lime) cake

Hi everyone!

It seems like I'm in a lemony-limey mood lately. This recipe is from an Irish colleague of mine from when I worked in Barcelona. It was sort of an unwritten rule for everybody at work to take a sweet, a cake, chocolates or some other snack into the office every once in a while. This lemon cake was an absolute success resulting in an enthusiastic back and forth of e-mails with recipes the next day. I have made this cake at least twenty times since then. Hasn't failed on me once...well, actually, I tried melting the butter once, instead of beating up the sugar and butter at room temperature, because of the lack of an electronic mixer. Tip: do not melt the butter!

So for this lemon (I used limes today) cake we need:

- 170g butter (room temperature)
- 250g white sugar
- 3 eggs
- 250g flour + 2 generousteaspoon baking powder
- 1 and a half lemons/limes (grated and juiced)
- 6 tablespoons milk
- 6 tablespoons icing sugar

Use a 26 cm baking tin and butter it before use. Preheat your oven to a moderate heat (170-180 degrees Celcius, but this can differ per oven).

Preparation:

1. Make sure you leave the butter out of the fridge for a while so it can soften a little before preparing the recipe.
2. Beat butter and sugar together until soft and creamy.
3. Add the eggs one by one and beat them until they are completely incorporated into the butter mixture.
4. Mix the baking powder and the flour and fold it into the egg, butter and sugar cream.
5. Grate the skin of the lemons/limes and add it as well.
6. Now add the milk and gently stir it all together, making sure no flour bubbles are formed.
7. Pour the cake batter into the greased baking tin.
8. Bake the oven for approximately 30 minutes or until just firm. Check the firmness by sticking a fork or toothpick in the middle of the cake while still in the oven.
9. Leave the cake to cool for about 10 minutes before removing from the baking tin.
10. Meanwhile, mix the icing sugar with some of the lemon/lime juice.
11. Once the cake has cooled down, prick the top of the cake with a for and pour the lemon juice mixture over it.

You can either serve the cake on its own cold or hot or even better, hot with vanilla icecream!

Once again the cake turned out perfect! Surely yours will too!

Kim

Baked fruit

Ingredients (4p):

• 2 apples, peeled and sliced
• 2 pears, peeled and sliced
• 50 gr walnuts
• 50 gr raisins
• butter
• tablespoon cinnamon

How to prepare:
Melt the butter in a pan and bake the appleparts and pearparts for 3 minutes.  Add the cinnamon and raisins and bake along with the fruit for 2 minute. Take the pan of the fire and add the walnuts. Serve the baked fruit in a bowl. Tip: add some vanilla yoghurt or vanilla ice.

Bon appétit,
Daphne

Tagliatelle with tuna and lemon

Ingredients (4p)

• 250 ml whipping cream (or sour cream instead)
• 1 lemon
• 2 cans of tuna (300 gr total)
• 400 gr tagliatelle
• 4 scallions or spring onions
• teaspoon thyme
• salt
• pepper
• 50 gr parmesan

How to prepare:
Grate the peel of the lemons and juice the lemons. Pour the oil of the tuna and break it up into small pieces. Cut the spring onions. Meanwhile, heat up water in a pan until it boils. Then add some salt and the tagliatelle (follow the instructions on the packaging). Put the whipping cream, the lemon peels and lemon juice in a different pan and heat it up until it boils. Add the herbs, tuna and spring unions after 5 minutes. When the tagliatelle is ready, divide it over four plates and pour the tuna-lemon sauce and parmesan over it.

Hope you'll love it as much as I do,
Daphne

Lemon Bars

This is a really easy recipe to whip up when you know you've got some visitors coming over soon or simply when you have a craving for something delicious, sweet and tangy. Preparation takes 10-15 minutes and the total baking time is approximately 40 minutes. So while you finish doing the dishes and clean up the kitchen, your lovely lemon bars will be almost ready.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
             
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 lemons, juiced
• Icing sugar

1. Pre-heat your oven to 175 degrees Celsius

2. Mix the first three ingredients and press them into a 9 x 13 inch baking pan.

3. Bake in pre-heated oven for about 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown and firm.

4. Meanwhile, whisk together the eggs, 1,5 cups of white sugar, 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour and the juice of two lemons.

5. Pour the mixture over the golden brown crust and bake for an additional twinty minutes. The bars will further firm up as they cool down. Once completely cooled down, cut into bars or into squares, dust with icing sugar and serve on a pretty platter.

Enjoy!

Love,

Kim

Rice with nuts and nectarines

Ingredients (4 persons):

•  300 gr rice with nuts (if you're not in the Netherlands when making this recipe, you can just use normal rice and add different kind of nuts to the pistachio)
• 100 gr pistachio
• 3 nectarines (not the right season? you can add peaches and manderine parts from a can, not as tasty but a good alternative!)
• 2 onions
• vegetable stok cube (bouillon)
• 1 decilitre orange juice
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon

How to prepare:
Clean the onions and cut them into small pieces. Pre-heat some olive oil in a pan and bake the onion and cinnamon about three minutes. Add the rice and bake the mixture for two minutes. Add the orange juice, 6 decilitre of water and the bouillon cube. Heat the mixture up until it boils and than cook it for 10 more minutes. If you've bought really hard nectarines, cut them into pieces and boil them along with the rice. If there soft and juicy, cut them and add them after the rice has been boiled for 10 minutes. Add the pistachio (and other nuts) at the end of the process.

One of my favorite recipes at the moment!

Enjoy, Daphne