Picking lemons from my mom's generous backyard lemon tree

Spring has sprung in the Bay Area. Unless you've been living under a rock, I'm sure this isn't news to you. Haven't you noticed coworkers with a little extra spring in their step--perhaps an unexpected smile on the bus? Asparagus is in the markets, flowers are popping up at the corner store by my place, and it's no longer getting dark at 5:30 p.m. Hallelujah. For me, there's something so appealing about the notion of fresh starts, new beginnings, and second chances that always leads me to put spring on a bit of a pedestal. Who doesn't love the chance at a new beginning? Even if it doesn't come to fruition literally, spring always gives me a surge of creativity and energy. It means going for runs after work instead of hunkering down, making fresh salads for dinner, and doing a little spring time baking. So here we find ourselves.

I spent some time at my mom's place in Marin last weekend and she has an amazing lemon tree with more lemons than she knows what to do with. I started bagging some up and racked my brain for what I wanted to do with them. Then I remembered reading a recipe for a Lemon Pudding Cake recently that I was curious to try. The recipe is from one of my first blogging friends, Kelsey, over at The Naptime Chef. If you haven't seen her blog, it's pretty great. She loves cooking and baking but found herself strapped for time after having her first child. So she started choosing and adapting recipes for the naptime hour--most that can be done in an hour or less. While I don't have kids, I appreciate Kelsey's tasteful recipe choices, great cookbook recommendations, and smart voice. Oh, and this cake.

A bowl of Lemon Pudding Cake right out of the oven. Enough said.

Kelsey adapted this cake recipe from Cooks Illustrated Entertaining 2010. As printed, the directions were much more complex, so Kelsey made it more approachable and do-able in under an hour. It's somewhere in between a luscious lemon pudding and a light fluffy cake, and I loved it right out of the oven. But I've also discovered that, with a cup of strong coffee, it makes a nice breakfast. And in addition to Kelsey's recipe, I've included some links below for other lemon desserts popping up around the web--all from bloggers or food sites that I read regularly. So here's to new beginnings, fresh starts, and cake for breakfast.

Juicing, Zesting, Mixing, and Separating: all in the name of Lemon Pudding Cake!

Lemon Pudding Cake
From: The Naptime Chef; adapted from Cooks Illustrated Entertaining

Makes: 8-10 servings

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tsp. cornstarch
1 1/4 cups sugar
5 Tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature
2 Tbsp. grated lemon zest
1/2 cups fresh lemon juice
1 1/4 cups whole milk
5 eggs, separated; yolks in one bowl with whites in another

Preparation:
1. Adjust oven rack to center position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Lightly butter an 8" square baking pan. Bring several quarts of water to boil for water bath. Mix flour and cornstarch together in a bowl, set aside.
2. Cream the butter, 1 cup of the sugar and lemon zest until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Then, beat in the egg yolks and flour mixture, mixing until smooth. Slowly mix in the lemon juice, then stir in the milk.
3. Set the custard mixture aside and beat the egg whites until they hold soft peaks. Then, add the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar and beat egg whites to stiff, moist peaks. Gently stir a dollop of the egg whites into the custard. Then, working slowly, fold the remaining egg whites in bit by bit until they are all incorporated, but not overly beaten.
4. Pour the batter into the baking pan and place the pan inside a larger baking pan. Then fill the larger baking pan with hot water bath until it comes halfway up the side of the pan. Bake until pudding cake center is set and springs back when gently touched, about 1 hour. Remove roasting pan from oven and let pan cool for 1 hour before serving.

Other Lemon Desserts to Check Out:

• One of my favorite bloggers, Tim over at Lottie + Doof, made The Ultimate Lemon Butter Bars
• The Kitchn featured a recipe last week for Sticky Lemon Rolls with Lemon Cream Cheese Glaze
• Denise Santoro Lincoln makes Homemade Meyer Lemon Marmalade for Bay Area Bites
• I've heard very good things about David Leibovitz's Lemon Tart recipe
• Joy the Baker whips up Lemon Tea Cloud Cookies

There I was, sitting at the handsome bar of Bar Stuzzichini, off Union Square in NYC, completely zoned out to all the pretty people around me drinking their sexy apertivi and buxom glasses of vino.

Plenty of time for all that revelry in a second. First, I had to deconstruct the sublime bowl of pasta in front of me, and memorize every flavor so I could attempt to recreate it at home. The object of my obsession was the brilliantly conceptualized Maccheroni alla Chitarra, strands of pasta coated in a pistachio and lemon cream sauce.

The thick sauce and homemade pasta was rich and comforting. It was creamy, but not too creamy, and there was no heaviness to it. The perfume of the lemon zest reminded me of Sicily. The pistachios added crunch, interest, and more visions of sultry Mediterranean nights. Topped with buttery parmigiano-reggiano, this was perfection sitting in front of me.

I had to have it. Not just for dinner on this particular evening, but to enjoy whenever I pleased, wherever I wandered to in life.

I’m not the greatest at creating recipes out of thin air, but if I do say so myself, this is pretty darn close to what I fell in love with that night at Bar Stuzzichini. Now if only I could summon those sexy apertivi to magically appear in my hand.

Pistachio Lemon Linguini
Inspiration from Bar Stuzzichini

Makes: 4-6 servings

Ingredients:
1 pound linguini
1 cup finely chopped onion (about 1 medium onion)
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups milk
2 cups vegetable or chicken stock
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons lemon zest (2 large lemons)
4 tablespoons lemon juice
1 cup roughly chopped pistachios
1 cup grated parmigiano-reggiano

Preparation:
1. Cook pasta in well-salted water until al dente.

2. While the pasta cooks, melt the butter in heavy saucepan over moderately low heat. Add the chopped onion and cook until softened. Add flour and whisk for about 3 minutes to make a roux. Add milk and stock in steady stream, whisking constantly until thick and smooth (10-15 min). Season with salt and pepper.

3. Pour the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve. Discard the solids.

4. Mix the sauce with the lemon zest, lemon juice, pistachios, and parmigiano.

5. Strain out the pasta and place into the sauce to coat. I like to fish out the pasta and drop into the sauce (rather than pouring the entire pot into a strainer in the sink), so that I retain some of the starchy pasta water which will help the sauce come together.

6. Garnish the dish with more shaved parmigiano.

I've never understood how a fruit as delightful and sweet as a raspberry could have inspired the term "blowing a raspberry." How could such a sweet and luscious plump red berry get such bad rap? Out of curiosity, I looked up the term. From what I can tell, it all started sometime in the late 1800s when some witty Brits thought the sound they produced when making derisive spitting noises sounded like flatulence. As "raspberry tart" rhymes with "fart" (a word that never ceases to incite giggles with my daughters and I'm sure was hilariously funny back then as well) the term was born. Makes no sense to me, but apparently it's part of a British rhyming tradition. As my family is originally from New York City, I'm more able to understand the reasons behind why someone would blow a raspberry (or give a Bronx cheer) than the etymology behind it.

So what does this all have to do with shortcake and berries? Well, not much other than I adore raspberries and have been contemplating how wonderful they are, particularly now, when they're in season and reasonably affordable. My mind also has a tendency to wander into etymological corners -- a trait I once assumed was charming, but now fear makes people nod off -- and this is where it led me as I stared at a beautiful mountain of raspberries in Whole Foods the other day.

Now that raspberries are in season, I want to gorge myself on them, sucking up their potent antioxidants and sweet juiciness. Earlier this year, I stopped buying raspberries (and all berries) when they're out of season because they're usually grown in Mexico, often with the help of strong pesticides that end up killing off song bird populations. Out of a sense of environmental responsibility and guilt, my family and I have gone a long hard winter without berries and we are ripe (excuse the pun) for indulging ourselves.

To celebrate raspberry season, I decided to indulge in a dessert where the raspberries are fresh and uncooked. I wanted to pay tribute to their sweet unadulterated plumpness, and so paired them with a slightly-sweet (but not too sweet) shortcake with whipped cream. As I love the flavor of almonds with raspberries, I added some nuts to the shortcake. The result was everything I had hoped for: a fresh burst of raspberry flavor atop buttery shortcakes, finished off with pillowy whipped cream and a hint of almond crunchiness. It was really the antithesis of a Bronx cheer.

Raspberry Almond Shortcake

Serves: 6

Ingredients for shortcakes:
2 ½ cups flour
½ cup sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
¼ cup chopped toasted almonds
6 Tbsp cold butter
1 cup whole milk
½ tsp almond extract

Ingredients for topping:
4 cups raspberries
½ cup sugar
½ tsp lemon juice
2 cups whipping cream
½ cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
Toasted almond slivers for garnish

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Add flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and almonds in a large bowl. Whisk to mix thoroughly.

3. Cut in the butter (you can either do this by hand with a pastry cutter or with your fingers. If you have a food processor, just pulse about ten times).

4. Add the almond extract to the milk and then add to the flour mixture.

5. Gently incorporate the milk into the flour. Be sure not to over mix as doing so will make the flour rubbery. If the mixture remains too wet to properly handle, add a little more flour until you can pat the dough firmly into a round disk.

6. Cut with a biscuit cutter (if you don't have one, you can use a jar or ramekin) and place onto a baking dish or large cast iron pan.

7. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 – 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

8. Mix berries, sugar and lemon juice in a bowl and set aside for at least 10 minutes.

9. Beat cream with powdered sugar and vanilla until whipped (but not too long or you'll have butter).

10. When ready to serve, slice each shortcake in half. Top the bottom with a healthy dollop of whipped cream and then cover with berries. Top with more whipped cream and lay the top of the shortcake against the berries. Serve.

Lemon Buttermilk shortcake alternative:
1. Substitute buttermilk for the milk.
2. Remove the almonds and almond extract.
3. Add 1 Tbsp lemon zest.

Strawberry shortcake alternative:
1. Use strawberries instead of raspberries.
2. Use the buttermilk shortcake alternative for the pastry.