Lemon Tart

A New Lemon Tart

Lemon Tart is currently undergoing some upgrades. A new look will be unveiled soon, but currently you'll notice a far better way of browsing the recipes on this site. The recipe box on the bar below the banner has links to every recipe on the site. I will also be making my way through to include printable recipe files. Simply click on the "printable recipe" link. I hope this will make it far easier to find what you are looking for.

Sour Cherry Sidecar

While I may be a self professed Oenophile, I seek a well made cocktail as often as I can. When presented with a drink made to perfection by a professional I see the true art of this craft. There's something sexy and sleek about a dim room, a well laid out bar, glittering bottles of spirits, liqueurs and bitters, shimmering ice cubes and the many shapes and sizes of glasses. The sounds of shaking and stirring and cracking of ice completely bewitches me.

I love a cocktail before dinner, or more often, while making it. Since they are often created based on syrups or juices found in my fridge, many of my creations are often made in waves and then left for dead. Bringing them back to life on my blog means I can share the recipes with my readers AND keep the recipe alive for my own future reference.

Today's drink is a variation of a  Sidecar. A very old cocktail, the Sidecar has been around for nearly a century, a category of drinks I have a soft spot for (the Manhatten and Opera being among my favourites). Some say it was born in Paris for a patron that arrived at the bar in a sidecar of a motorcycle, others say it was created in London at the end of WWI. No matter what the story, drinks that last that long do so with good reason. Just the right mix of sour and sweet makes the Sidecar a study in balance, something I look for most in a cocktail. But what's even better is that the recipe is perhaps the easiest to remember, which is likely why its been showing up around here so often. Equal parts lemon juice, orange liqueur and brandy mean a recipe I can rattle off no matter how hectic the room is. 3 ingredients also means I always have the goods on site.

A Valentines Day Collection

Happy Valentines Day! 

If, like me, you are staying in to celebrate, cooking something for or with your special someone, I've put together a few Lemon Tart links to help you create your menu for that someone special.

• Edible Valentines can be made with sugar cookies beautifully decorated.
• Baked Alaskas are easy if you use storebought ice cream and pound cake!
• Layered pannacotta and gelee is prettier in a jar.
• Everyone swoons over cheesecake.
• Valentines day and chocolate go hand in hand!
• A special Valentines brunch is always a great way to start the day.
• Crimson red cherries for dessert are an edible valentine.
• Chocolate meringue and ice cream can't be wrong!

 

Sour Cherry Cookie Streusel Crumble

You know that old saying, when the cookie crumbles...

MAKE DESSERT!

I was making cookies recently, a new recipe that didn't quite work out. Sure it made cookies, but I added a little too many ground hazelnuts added "flour" to the dry ingredients which made for a very dry dough that was hard to work into a dough without overworking. I managed to roll it out and cut out a batch , but a second roll wasn't going to work so nicely. Just as I was hovering over the trash can, ready to scrape it all in, I stopped myself in the nick of time and thought, "STREUSEL"!

With a toss of my hands and a few squeezes here and there, a toss onto a baking sheet, what I was looking at was streusel, which is nothing but a crumbly crunchy topping made of sugar, flour and butter, exactly what my cookies were made of. While the dough wasn't holding together enough for cookies, it certainly was for this purpose. In fact I've made a similar combination before from scratch, so this was a buttery bonus.

I baked the mixture until lightly browned all over and crunchy. In the freezer this will keep a month thrown on top of fruit pies, muffins, ice cream, canned fruit or any dessert you want a little texture. Heck this could even be ground with a little extra sugar and butter and become a cookie crust for cheeseacake. But where this stuff really becomes a life saver is simply strewn over bubbling frozen fruit, a nice change to the usual oatmeal based crumbles I usually make and a super quick dessert.

I dug down into my abyss of a deep freeze and took out the last dregs of a bag of sour cherries. So bright and crimson they would make a great Valentines dessert on their own. Such gems as these need little to make them special, just some sugar to make them palatable is all they need, but a kiss of crunchy streusel adds a pleasing texture.

Nutella Sandwich Cookies

It was World Nutella Day recently. You will recall a couple past years here at Lemon Tart, where cookies and profiteroles  made an appearance with the beloved Nutella. Everywhere in the world people were smearing this beloved chocolate hazelnut spread on everything, with reckless abandon. While I haven't the childhood nostalgia to go with this gooey phenomenon, I certainly understand that combining chocolate and my favourite nut is a really really good idea.

When brainstorming about what I would be making on the occasion of World Nutella Day I already had my star ingredient stashed away ready for its debut here. A Nutella of a different name you might say, this years player was Askinosie,  a relatively new bean to bar American chocolate maker. On the infrequent occasions I've been able to grab a few bars it is one of my all time favourite chocolate makers anywhere in the world. I picked up this spread above while in San Francisco at my dream neighborhood grocery, Bi Rite, and snapped it off that shelf as if it was the last one on earth. What sets this spread apart from other similar spreads is that this is the only Bean to Spread product. Rather than simply mixing the ingredients together, they mix full flavoured Washington hazelnut butter with the cacao beans in the chocolate making stage. I knew this stuff would be special, and oh it is, the most full flavoured spread of its kind I've come across. So this needed a simple recipe to properly show it off.

Sandwiching nutella or any other chocolate hazelnut spread between two cookies is not a new idea. In fact, aside from smearing it on toast, Euro-style, it seems to be made for that application. And as for a spread of this quality, there seemed no better way to showcase it than between two buttery crispy shortbread cookies full of my best Hazelnuts, from Oregon actually. Well, that's after licking it straight off of a very chic spoon, which as you can see I already did!

I remembered such a cookie worthy of this application. A sandwiched cookie full of tasty nutella that even after being made for a few days and shipped, came to me crispy and crunchy, yet still not overbaked. While I've made nut shortbread cookies filled with everything from Dulce de Leche to chocolate raspberry jam to ganache, all of them were tender and void of that crunch I crave.