Juice or Zest, Lemon is best

Jack: Lemon, I want to thank you. For showing me that I could have a pleasant evening with a woman my age.

Liz: I'm twelve years younger than you.

Jack: A woman your age then.

From: 30 Rock, S3

I love Liz Lemon of 30 Rock ( I love Jack too) and I love Tina Fey. Having paid tribute to both Fey and Lemon, let's talk lemons; real lemons.

Everyone knows the famous saying about lemons: "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade". But I say why limit ourselves to lemonade (as refreshingly lovely as it is) when lemons go really well in cakes, sauces, pies, tarts ....

Craving some lemony goodness, I decided to make Martha Stewart's Lemon Glazed Pound Cake, a relatively simple cake to make but one that yields huge huge rewards.



Now, say what you want about Martha (I feel I can call her by her first name since I am acting as her personal PR liason!) but her recipes rarely, if ever fail. Her directions are clear and concise and the recipes are often uncomplicated.

For this lemon pound cake (I just love saying "pound cake" - don't know why), you just need 1 cup of all purpose flour, 5 tbsp unsalted butter, 3/4 cup castor sugar, 1/4 tsp baking soda, 1/4 tsp salt, 2 eggs, 1/4 cup milk, 3 tbsp fresh lemon juice, zest from 2 lemons, 3 tbsp icing sugar. Thats it.

[caption id="attachment_787" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="A must for cooks, I say"][/caption]

Putting the cake together should actually only take about 20 minutes at most. But, as I don't have an electric mixer and had to cream the butter and sugar (and later egg) with an ancient mixer (the one with the paddles but also a wheel you had to turn to work them paddles -- see pix below), it took me a while longer (arm cramps and all).

The cake in itself isn't all that sweet. It's lemony and spongy (like a mild chiffon) but not sweet. But then Martha adds a lemon glaze (mix 2 tbsp lemon juice with 3 tbsp icing sugar) on top of the cake once it's out of the oven (it takes only about 35 mins to bake) and that, my friends, is the clincher.

[caption id="attachment_790" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Can you see the glaze?"][/caption]

This is,  at the moment, is my favourite cake to make.  Until I get another craving and discover another fabulous recipe. Oh well, until then ... lemon up, peeps.