Homemade Lemonade

Now here's something I haven't done before; making a drink on my foodie blog!  The neighbour (who is never home, only comes home once every now and then to mow the lawns) has a massive lemon tree, which is laden with fruit.  A LOT of fruit.  And I want to use it.  We also have our own, smaller, tree.  I used a mixture of lemons from both.

Normally we can take lemons down to a local place who give us cordial, lemon curd and such in return, but this time I want to make something with it.  Right now I already have a  Lemon Yoghurt Loaf in the oven, sans blueberries, using up some lemon.  But I still had tonnes left over.

I always saw the stereotypical little lemonade stand selling cups of lemonade for 50c in movies and things, and wondered, surely it must be easy to make the stuff?  So I did!

INGREDIENTS
1 cup sugar (can reduce to 3/4 cup if you don't want it as sweet)
1 cup water (for sugar syrup)
1 cup lemon juice
3 to 4 cups cold water (to dilute)

METHOD

• Combine sugar and 1 cup water in a small saucepan
• Stir over medium high heat until sugar dissolves
• Set aside to cool
• Juice the lemons (between 4 and 6 to make 1 cup of juice)
• Combine lemons with cooled sugar syrup
• Pour into a juice jug (or whatever you want to use)
• Add the extra water to dilute
• Chill (the juice AND you, cos you're done!)

See what I mean?!  So freaking easy.  I have learned one thing though.  It's REALLY hard to take a nice photo of a drink.

As for taste, well I added only 3 cups water to dilute, and it was super strong.  But really, really, REALLY nice.  I love it.  I can't wait to make more of it for summer! :D

Recipe Inspiration : http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/perfect_lemonade/

Lemon Blueberry Yoghurt Loaf

I have always been obsessed with lemon cake, lemon syrup cake, lemon yoghurt cake, and all of the above.  I found this recipe totally by accident on pinterest.com and decided to make it because we had lots of blueberries in the freezer, and just that morning I had picked some lemons off our recovering tree (Mum had hacked away so much foliage that it didn't have any fruit for ages, but now it's bouncing back beautifully!).  Plus my cousin was staying so I wanted to make something special and yummy for us to all enjoy.

The hardest part about making this loaf was the waiting.  Waiting for it to cook.  Waiting for it to cool.  Waiting for the syrup to soak in.  Waiting for the glaze to harden.  Meanwhile it smells and looks AMAZING.  And surprisingly, all the baking, syruping and glazing wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be, since I like simple recipes with few steps.  But gosh, this was worth all the steps.  Honestly.

INGREDIENTS
 

For the Loaf:
1 1/2 cups + 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour, divided
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup  yoghurt (plain, or lemon flavoured)

1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest (approximately 2 lemons)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 & 1/2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen, thawed and rinsed

For the Lemon Syrup:
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/3 cup sugar

For the Lemon Glaze:
1 cups icing sugar, sifted
2 to 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
 

METHOD

• Preheat the oven to 180 deg C.
• Line one 9 x 5-inch loaf pans with baking paper.
• In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the yogurt, sugar, eggs, lemon zest, vanilla and oil. 
• Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. 
• In a separate bowl, mix the blueberries with the remaining tablespoon of flour.
• Fold them very gently into the batter.
• Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake 50 to 55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean.
• Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing loaf to a wire rack, keeping it on the baking paper.

• While the loaf is cooling, make the lemon syrup in a small saucepan over medium heat.
• Stir together the lemon juice and sugar until the sugar is completely dissolved. 
• Once dissolved, continue to cook for 3 more minutes. 
• Remove from the heat; set aside.
• Use a toothpick to poke holes in the tops and sides of the warm loaf. 
• Brush the top and sides of the loaf with the lemon syrup. 
• Let the syrup soak into the cake and brush again. 
• Let the cake cool completely.

• To make the lemon glaze, in a small bowl, whisk together the icing sugar and 2-3 tablespoons of the lemon juice. The mixture should be thick but pourable. 
• Add up to another tablespoon of lemon juice if the mixture is too stiff. 
• Pour the lemon glaze over the top of each loaf and let it drip down the sides. 
• Let the lemon glaze harden, about 15 minutes, before serving.

OK, so I know in the past I have gone on about my detestation of lemon zest (see all my lemon poppyseed muffin attempts...) but honestly, I don't think it's as bad as I thought.  I barely noticed it at all in this loafy cake thing.  And WOAH was it amazing.  Seriously.  SO lemony.  I LOVE it.  I'll definitely be making this again.

My family enjoying it!

 

For this one, we didn't have plain yoghurt, but we had lemon flavoured yoghurt, so I used that, and I think it made it just that little bit more lemony.  AMAZING.  And the blueberries were little bombs of juicy flavour, and hand-staining colour.   I recommend eating with a fork.  It's quite a moist loaf too, so eating with hands is almost silly.  And the glaze, once it's dry and hard, makes a sugary lemony crunchy outer layer that is just incredible.  I cannot gush enough about this cake.  OMG.  It hasn't lasted long... 

Recipe Inspiration: http://sweetpeaskitchen.com/2011/05/15/lemon-blueberry-yogurt-loaf/

Lemon Poppyseed Muffins, Take 2

So after the somewhat disappointing results of my last lemon poppyseed muffin attempt a few blog posts ago (disappointing to me - it just wasn't lemony enough for my taste), I was on the lookout for a different lemon poppyseed muffin recipe to try, preferably using MORE lemon juice (and optional on the zest, since I don't like zest). 

Cue our family friend Cathryn and her own favourite lemon poppyseed muffin recipe!  :)  This is one she makes for her sons, using fresh lemons from her tree.  Today I gave it a go myself, because I needed to make something to take with me to a lunch tomorrow. 

This recipe makes A LOT of mixture, which is good, it made A LOT of muffins! :)  So I can take some to lunch and my parents won't feel like they're missing out on muffins haha!

INGREDIENTS

3 eggs

1 cup trim milk

1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

100g melted butter (or 100mL oil) 

2 tablespoons poppyseeds

3 heaped teaspoons baking powder

1 cup white sugar

1 & 1/2 cups flour

METHOD

• Preheat oven to 180 deg C
• Sift flour and baking powder into a mixing bowl
• Stir in sugar and poppyseeds
• Quickly mix in milk, eggs, butter (oil), and lemon juice
• Stir until just mixed - it is supposed to be very runny, so don't panic
• Fill muffin pans 3/4 full - don't overfill
• Bake until a toothpick poked into the centre of a muffin comes out clean (starting to go golden)

 

These muffins came out lovely!  I really like how moist they were, but alas, still not as lemony as the Starbucks ones that I have put up on a pedestal.  Hmm.  Maybe I will have to do what I've been trying to avoid, and put zest in it.  -_-

Lemon Poppyseed Muffins

When I was 11, we moved to Malaysia to live for 3 years (because of my Dad's job).  While there, we (being my Mum, her friend and her friends daughters) visited Starbucks, A LOT.  I mean, why wouldn't we, it was CHEAP there, and there was a Starbucks right across the road from where we lived!  Not even kidding.  Walk out of our apartment building, cross the street and we're at Starbucks.  It was amazing.  

Anyway, Starbucks used to serve lemon poppyseed muffins.  They were so good!  The top was always crispy and delicious, and there was so much lemon that the whole muffin was deliciously tangy and lemony, and the poppyseed just added a beautiful crunch to it.  Of course, they served them warm, with butter, which was just superb.  It quickly became one of our regular orders, and they were always amazing, never had a bad muffin.

And so this inspired me to try making lemon poppyseed muffins today, with a recipe I saw on via www.pinterest.com.  I followed the recipe to a tee, just because with baking you need to be a bit more careful with measurements and things because it's all based on chemical food reactions, and I didn't want to end up with terrible little bricks.

The only things I changed was that I didn't put any zest in (because I loathe the texture of lemon zest) and I forgot to put the salt in (maybe contributed to the disappointing flavour??).

INGREDIENTS

½ cup (~120g) sweet creamy butter, softened
²⁄₃ cup sugar
2 large eggs , separated
1 ¹⁄₃ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons poppy seeds
2 lemons, zest of , grated
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup plain yogurt
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla

METHOD

• Preheat oven to 180 deg C
• In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until fluffy
• Add egg yolks one at a time, beat well after each
• In a separate bowl, mix dry ingredients, poppyseeds, SALT, and lemon zest
• Add dry ingredients to cream mixture, alternating with yoghurt, lemon juice and then vanilla
• Original recipe says to beat, but in past experience, just mix/fold together gently - don't over mix.  Stir only a few times, until just mixed.
• In another bowl, whisk egg whites until soft peaks form
• Stir/fold gently into muffin mixture until blended
• Spoon into muffin pan (if it's not a silicon pan, be sure to grease your tins first!), filling 3/4 full
• Bake until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean, and the muffins are golden

I was a bit disappointed with these muffins and won't be using this recipe again, but I thought I'd share it anyway.  They just weren't lemony enough!!!  I could barely taste any lemon.  I mean, they were still nice, and they density was good and they weren't little bricks or anything.  It's just they weren't tangy or anything like how I expected, even though I added over 2 tablespoons of lemon juice.

I shall keep looking for other recipes to try, and hopefully one day I'll find one as good as Starbucks!!!

Recipe Inspiration: http://www.food.com/recipe/lemon-poppy-seed-muffins-100943