Lemon Pound Cake

Um, hi?

I recently made a batch of lemon myrtle financiers with macadamia nuts and berries. (You can find the basic Bourke Street Bakery recipe here - I just added a couple of teaspoons of powdered lemon myrtle to the batter, and added nuts along with the berries.)

To use up some of the left-over egg yolks, I made this cake. And I think it actually turned out better than the financiers. (Apologies for the instagram photo, I'm too lazy to upload another.)

Lemon Pound Cake

90g butter
2/3 cup granulated sugar
4 egg yolks
1 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup milk
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon peel
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Heat oven to 180 C. Butter and flour a small loaf pan.

In a mixing bowl, cream the butter with sugar until light and fluffy.

Separately, beat the yolks until light and lighter coloured. Then work the yolks into the butter and sugar.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Gradually add flour mixture to the first mixture, alternating with the milk. Beat well.

Blend in the lemon zest and juice and the extract.

Spoon batter into the prepared loaf pan.

Bake about 45 to 50 minutes until golden and baked through.

Cool in pan on rack for about 45 minutes. Remove from pan and cool thoroughly. Pour lemon sauce on top.

Lemon sauce

1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 cup granulated sugar
a dash salt
1 cup boiling water
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
2 -3 tablespoons lemon juice

In a saucepan, combine cornstarch, sugar, and salt. Blend well.

Stir in the boiling water.

Keep on medium heat, stirring. Once it begins to boil, turn the heat down and simmer for 5 minutes.

Remove from heat. Add the lemon zest and the fresh lemon juice.

From Italian Dessert Recipes

Lemon cloud tea cookies

With October and the Sydney Food Festival just days away, we're on the cusp of a whole month of eating. But for early starters, there were at least two festivals this weekend to eat one's way through:

First up was Oktoberfest. Due to trackwork, the usual 10 minute train ride from Central turned into a 70 minute (!) two-bus commute to Tempe and the Concordia German Club. The beautiful weather and the historical re-enactments, complete with musketfire, almost made up for it.



And of course there was the obligatory schnitzel, sauerkraut, strudel, and schnapps. If you've never been to the Concordia club, I do recommend it. As their souvenir steiner suggests, it's where beer and kangaroos meet.



On Sunday it was time for the Malaysia Festival in Tumbalong Park at Darling Harbour. Lots of colourful costumes and performances, and some equally colourful food. (Full disclosure: this pink rose-flavoured drink was horrid, but it LOOKED great. Like something Hello Kitty would drink!)



For the less sweet-toothed, there was also plenty of curry, laksa, roti and rojak; and at least five different stalls selling their own versions of nasi lemak. Om nom!



My favourite, however, was both brightly coloured and sweet - dadar pandan, or pandan crepes filled with coconut and palm sugar, mmm...




Okay so the recipe below has nothing to do with this weekend of festival eating, except timing. Note I went back to my old fave, Technicolor Kitchen, for the recipe - I make no apologies.

This was a quick, easy recipe. I followed the instructions faithfully but overall I thought it could've been a bit more punchy in flavour, a little richer. As is they are a light biscuit best had with tea or coffee.


Lemon cloud tea cookies

1 1/2 cups (210g) all purpose flour
3/4 cup cornstarch
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
113g (8 tablespoons/1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup (140g) confectioners’ sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest


Preheat oven to 160°C (325°F) and line two large baking sheets with baking paper.

Sift the flour, cornstarch, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Set aside.

Combine the butter and confectioners' sugar until light.

Beat in the eggs one at a time. Batter may look broken and curdled. Beat in the juice and zest. Beat in the flour mixture.

Arrange rounded teaspoons of the dough on prepared pans. Space the balls about 5cm apart. Flour a fork and press a crisscross design into the top of each mound of dough.

Bake the cookies until they spread and become golden, about 20 minutes. Slide the parchment paper off the pan to cool completely.

Makes 48 tiny cookies - I made over 50.

From Technicolor Kitchen

Lemon and Passionfruit Tarts

A little dessert experiment cooked up with friends, using a desserts cookbook and whatever ingredients we had to hand. We substituted a lot of ingredients - raw sugar for caster sugar, puff pastry for filo pastry - it worked out fine!



Lemon and Passionfruit Tarts with Berries

60g unsalted butter
90g (1/3 cup) caster sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons self-raising flour
60ml (1/4 cupe) lemon juice
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 passionfruit, pulp removed
3 sheets filo pastry
125g (1 cup) fresh berries


Preheat oven to 180C.

Beat butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time. Add the flour, lemon juice, zest and passionfruit pulp, and beat until well combined.

Carefully line muffin tins with pastry. Pour in the lemon mixture and bake for 20-25 minutes or until set.

Serve topped with fresh berries and cream (we used hand-whipped cream, mixed with passionfruit pulp).

Makes 6.