Science Shows: Lemon Does Not ALWAYS Conquer Sweetness

Quite often, I miss the Heavenly Cakes deadline, make the cake a few days late, and then don't post about it for months. Sometimes, the opposite happens--I page through the book looking for something to make for a sometime-in-the-future free choice. This post is an amalgam of these two very very serious events.

First, there was the Lemon Canadian Crown, made in stages (first ladyfingers, then lemon curd, then lemon cream....), frozen for over two months, and then eaten happily, without the meringue topping that had been holding off the finish. I just didn't want any meringue, and more to the point I knew the cake couldn't be re-frozen once it had meringue on, and that it would take more than a day to finish.

At the time that the Heavenly Cake Bakers made this cake, there was a lot of moaning and groaning and triumphal shouting about ladyfingers. For the record, I love making ladyfingers. I also love eating them, so I often have to make a double batch. They're sponge cake. Nuff said. That double batch thing helps in the difficult art of getting enough of them to be picturesque. As you see. The entire thing was very good, and not at all freezer-burned from all that storage. And Matt made the amazing scientific discovery that when eaten with a bit of ladyfinger, the lemon in the cream did NOT conquer the sweetness, and he finally understood the point of lemon and sugar combinations.

A few weeks later, Jill and I got hungry, and were hunting for a cake that could be made with the ingredients on hand. We settled on a free choice preview, the Black Chocolate Party Cake, a cocoa and walnut bundt with a Kahlua-cocoa syrup. Bitter and rich, this was a favorite, and will definitely be repeated.

Last of the catch-ups was the Quail Egg Indulgence Cake, which I made with plain old chicken eggs. It was crusty and delicious, very dense and rich.

Best of my love.