Lemon Cake

I have not been writing here for quite a while, which is annoying as I am back to not keeping my perfected recipes again.

The first iteration worked pretty well except the cake sunk in the middle due to lack of experience (i used cold butter straight from the fridge), and fell apart when i was taking out of the baking tin. Still tasted amazing though.

The second iteration I decided to make a lemon drizzle as well as the frosting and changed up the cake mixture a little as well: room temperature butter, more egg and baking powder. This worked great! It rose to perfection. While still warm I lanced it all over with a skewer then poured a lemon drizzle on it. Unfortunately then I messed up as I left it overnight in the tin to cool, it took a lot of messing to get it out in one piece.

So without further ado, my lemon cake recipe thus far:

Ingredients

Mixture

227g room temp. butter (200 for mixture, 27 for icing if you only have the half pound block)
225g caster sugar
4 eggs
finely grated zest 1 lemon (might up this to two)
225g flour
1 heaped tsp baking powder
pinch of salt (not sure why i put this in, leave out next time)

Drizzle GENTLY HEAT THIS NEXT TIME!

juice 1 lemon
85g caster sugar

Icing

juice 1 lemon
50g knob of butter (or just use the 27g if it's all you've got left), this seems to make it yellower
125g castor sugar

Method

Preheat oven 180 C.
in mixing bowl with wooden spoon, make sure butter is soft, add sugar and whip till light and more fluffy looking.
add and whip eggs one by one.
sift in flour, baking powder, and salt mixture mixing well
do not forget the lemon zest, and mix until seems kinda fluffier.
Grease tin and pour in mix.
Cook for 45 mins.

Take out and poke holes in with skewer. Mix up drizzle, and pour over, try and get in holes.
Let drizzle set, then take out of tin immediately!! or else it will get stuck.
Let cool completely, do icing after that: mix, spread on top.
Voilà!

Buttery Basa & Coconut Rice

Made this recipe here, quite good.

http://gourmeted.com/2009/07/14/baked-basa-fillets



Basa Fillets Baked in Garlic and Butter Posted 14 July 2009 by JOY Hello Friends! I’m doing this year’s Blogathon on July 25 and blog every 30 minutes for 24 hours to raise money for the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society. If you are able, please sponsor me and make a donation pledge. Butter. I love it and there’s no denying it. When I was really, really young, vegetables (snow peas, carrots, green beans and corn) cooked in butter and served with a sprinkle of salt blew my mind. These days I enjoy adding butter to meat and fish. It makes everything much better, just like bacon. I think they’re siblings. Here, instead of frying basa fish, I baked it in butter: Oh, and it was so good with the coconut rice! Baked Basa Fillets in gGarlic and Butter Ingredients: 2 fillet slabs of basa fish (mine was 1.4 lb in total), or any white fish of your preference 3 tbsp butter, melted 1/4 tsp salt 1/8 tsp fresh ground pepper 2 tbsp chopped garlic 1/2 a lemon, cut in 1/2 a handful of cilantro, roughly chopped, for garnish Preparation 1. Preheat oven to 400°F. 2. In a baking dish, mix the butter, garlic, salt and pepper. Place the fish fillets into the mixture, and then turn them so both sides are coated. Cover the dish with aluminum foil. 3. Bake for 10 minutes, then take out of the oven and turn off the heat. Squeeze the lemon, a quarter lemon for each fillet. Sprinkle with cilantro and cover again with aluminum foil. Place back in the oven for another 5-10 minutes, until the meat becomes flaky and the thinner edges begin to have some color. You will notice that you might end up with a lot of juice in the pan. That’s fine. You can either toss it, or spoon a little over the fillets to be served. 4. Slice and serve with rice. To make coconut rice, use this proportion: For every cup of uncooked white rice, use 1/4 cup coconut milk (canned is perfectly fine) and 3/4 cups water.

Salmon Darne Roast

boiled a pot of baby potatoes
sliced 3 tri-coloured peppers in large chunks
finely chopped 3 garlic cloves
chopped a red onion
ground plenty of salt and pepper
a small handful of mixed herbs
added all of these to a well olive oiled roasting dish and mixed around in the dish with my hands
popped in a pre-heated oven for 20 mins (i oven everything at 200 deg centigrade if your wondering)

grated some lemon zest, and juiced the lemon
got some vegatable stock ready
before the oven was ready i seared 2 salmon fillet in some olive oil on high heat for a couple o minutes on each side.

i then carefully added all these things to the roasting dish getting plenty of zest on the salmon and made sure everything was dipped in the stock. put back in the oven for another 15 minutes.

viola. this would probably be good with white wine instead of the stock.

really good, i am officially into roasting stuff, got some nice lemony salmon tinged stock leftover from this one.

Lemony Lemongrass Chicken

This is very much a chunky soup / stew really.

4 very large chicken breasts diced and marinated in the juice of 2 lemons.
About 4 large lemongrass sticks, removed bulbs and outer leaves, finely chopped the light coloured bit, bruised and made cuts in the stalks but left whole.
The lemon was probably a mistake, but I also kinda knew I was doing the wrong thing and wanted to see what happened.
Added the lemongrass to a pot of 1 litre chicken stock (half a Knorr homestyle chicken stock pot), and added sliced chicken also. Brought to the boil then simmered while I got the veg ready (12 mins maybe)

Chopped 1 small tray of those wee young corn on the cobs, 3 large peppers (green, red, yellow), and 4 hadfuls of spinach. Brought back to the boil threw in a can of coconut milk and left simmer for a few minutes while I cooked a big pot of medium noodles.

I then added 4 tbsp soy sauce, 2 tbsp thai fish sauce, and 1/2 tbsp hot sauce. At this point it smelt fucking amazing and I thought I'd gotten away with the lemons, a quick taste revealed the ridiculously overpowering acidity, 1 tbsp of honey fixed this right up though. After a quick tasting session with the noodles I added 1 more tbsp of soy sauce. Viola, perfection! A very fresh tasting soupy noodle broth =)

This made me about 8 small meals.

This is probaby the first meal I've made in a long time that didn't have a ridiculous amount and chilli and garlic i just realised.