Kate in the Kitchen

lighter than normal lemon pound cake

January 27th, 2012 | 4 Comments »

January is drawing to a close and we’ve only just now received the first good snowfall to completely cover the landscape. And with only one brief cold snap, where temperatures dropped below zero for a day or two, it really just hasn’t felt much like winter at all. Still, the calendar doesn’t lie, the light still falls off before the dinner hour -although it gets later and later every day!!- and the hum of an oven, concealing something aromatic and delicious is still welcomed in any Minnesota home.

Lemon is everywhere right now. Those bright yellow orbs are certainly popular in the wintertime, bursting forth with that incredible fresh scent. Lemon is like sunshine, and not just from the sunny yellow color; that spritz of luscious lemony aroma that bursts from the rind when you cut into it is a wonderful tonic to the drab and gray of a winter day. I even feel sunnier eating lemon, like the light rays are just pouring through me. And citrus fruits are coming to the cold, lifeless mid-section of the country in all forms; gigantic globes of grapefruit, sunny tangerines, adorable little kumquats and key limes plus endless lemons.

I love to bake with lemon anything, and I particularly love the fresh zest paired with blueberries. But I have to admit that a lemon pound cake can make my knees weak. There is something about that tart bite, and the dense moist crumb that gets me, that makes it irresistible. But I’m not such a huge fan of the calories in pound cake, so finding a recipe that makes a lighter and less caloric version made me eager to try it out. But I had to ask myself…. would this even be worth it? We’ve all had those experiences of finding a less decadent way of baking a prized cake that simply falls flat. I couldn’t stand to be faced with a lemon cake that left me wanting more.

Needless to say, I was not at all disappointed.

If you didn’t know that this cake wasn’t made with a ton of butter and sugar, you might not realize it at all. It still has that gloriously dense texture that’s rich and satisfying. It still shouts “LEMON!!” with every bite. It satisfies and satiates and makes for a luxurious treat that doesn’t leave you feeling too guilty. There’s a ‘just tart enough’ glaze brushed over the top of it to add even more of that lovely mouth-puckering taste, making the top of the cake nice and soft too, something I love about a good teacake.

The bright and sunny winter day even made the photos look like they were bathed in lemony light.

Lemon Pound Cake

1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour or white whole-wheat flour

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 large lemons, divided

1 1/4 cups sugar, divided

3 ounces reduced-fat cream cheese (Neufchâtel), at room temperature

2 tablespoons butter, at room temperature

3 large egg whites, at room temperature (see Tips)

1 large egg, at room temperature

1/2 cup reduced-fat milk
Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat a 9-by-5-inch (or similar-size) loaf pan with cooking spray; dust with flour and tap out any excess.Sift whole-wheat flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder and salt together into a medium bowl.

Finely grate 2 tablespoons zest from 2 of the lemons; set the lemons aside. Beat 3/4 cup sugar, cream cheese, butter and the zest in a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in egg whites, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the egg and beat well. Reduce speed to medium and beat in milk; the mixture will look curdled.

Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour mixture in 2 batches, beating just until combined and scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and smooth the top with a rubber spatula.

Bake the cake until a wooden skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Run a knife around the sides and turn the cake out onto the rack.

While the cake is cooling, squeeze 5 tablespoons juice from the zested lemons. Trim the ends off the remaining whole lemon and very thinly slice; discard any seeds. Heat the lemon juice and remaining 1/2 cup sugar in a small nonstick skillet over medium heat, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Add the lemon slices and cook, stirring frequently, until softened, about 5 minutes. Reduce heat to maintain a simmer. Use a fork to transfer the lemon slices to a bowl. Continue simmering the syrup until slightly thickened and beginning to turn golden yellow, 2 to 4 minutes

Set the rack over a rimmed baking sheet. Poke holes all over the top of the warm cake with a wooden skewer, 1 1/2 to 2 inches deep. Spoon the glaze over the cake, poking more holes if the glaze does not sink in. Arrange the lemon slices on top. Let the cake cool completely before slicing.

Recipe Notes: I made my cake with the glaze, and not the candied lemon slices. I tried, but they fell apart in the syrup and looked strange so I didn’t put them on the cake. The glaze was good, but I think the cake doesn’t really need it either.

Recipe from Eating Well magazine, posted in original form.

Embracing winter darkness

December 18th, 2009 | 3 Comments »

This time of year it isn’t unusual to find the long winter shadows start to appear around early afternoon. With the swift approach of the Solstice, the darkness seems almost interminable. But the nice thought is, after Monday, the days grow progressively longer. And Spring will be three months away.

Are you one of those, at least those of us in the grasp of a northern hemisphere Winter, that feel the night descend so hard that the 7:00pm darkness can often feel like midnight? Like we need to be going to bed instead of finishing up the dinner dishes and thinking about how to manage the evening ahead? We’ve been plagued with that quite a bit at our house. And I’m never sure how to get past it except to just roll with the changing light and keep in mind that the tilt of the Earth always brings us back to warmer weather, dripping eaves and bare brown patches that miraculously change into green again. And up until recently, I never considered actually embracing that darkness. It was always about trying to get away from it. Then I read this essay by Jeanette Winterson. And I read it again. It struck a chord in me and suddenly the coming darkness that evening didn’t seem so daunting.

Winterson’s essay is all about the enjoyment of darkness for many things considered normal in our lives. She speaks eloquently of the effect of the night on love, cooking, thinking, creativity and all manner of human purpose. Most of it I’ve never considered at all, especially the cooking aspect, at least not in the way that she explains it.

She talks about how our culture has phased out the night, treating it more like failed daylight than a time of slowness and silence, which she urges us to acknowledge as a correction of the day. I especially loved how she talked about the slim hour of time where the day and night meet, where the darkness slowly envelops the light.

“City or country, that sundown hour is strange and exhilarating, as ordinary spatial relations are altered: trees rear up in their own shadows, buildings bulk out, pavements stretch forward, the red wrapper of brake lights turns a road into a lava flow.”

In the wintertime, this twilight, or “blue time”, as a friend of mine has coined, is my absolute favorite moment of the otherwise dark and chill that surrounds it. It’s perfect for reflection, a cup of tea and the rather soothing way that the shadows turn the snow from white to opal to purple and then finally to the deepest blue-black of a December night.

Sometimes, if we’re lucky enough to lift our eyes to the sky, we can be rewarded with sunsets like this:

Which, to my utmost surprise on this particular evening, not only painted the western horizon in this creative and colorful light, but tossed pastel tinted clouds all over the eastern sky as well….

And the sight of it all nearly gave me whiplash as I spun back and forth trying to catch the prime moments happening on both sides of me. With this kind of beauty ushering in our winter darkness, it almost seems a shame to turn on the lights and chase away the winter night. But that’s what we do. Most of the time anyway. For one night, while the guys were gone, I decided to defy that urge and do what Winterson suggests. Sit among the dark, with a fire and candles, and relax in the moment. I actually looked forward to the hours ahead. But I cheated just a little in terms of light though, loving the twinkling look of this bakers rack that resides in the corner of our kitchen.

Fortified after an intense outing on my cross country skis, I made sure that a simple dinner was on hand. A baked sweet potato and a cabbage salad seemed perfect for a solitary night with a few candles and the fireplace. I wished the evening was temperate enough to be out at the fire pit, enjoying the crackling of a true wood fire. Our gas fireplace as all the ambiance of watching a bunsen burner, but the warmth it puts out left the room cozy and comforting. The cats settled on the sofa with me, the contentment seemingly catchy. The flickering candles had a soothing effect on my thoughts, and I found that I had no urge to push through the hours until I could go to bed. It was a nice surprise to find that I really was enjoying myself. With 2010 bearing down on me, and a less than stellar 2009 fading in the rearview mirror, I welcomed the opportunity to reflect and look forward to starting something new again. I enjoyed my simple meal, and more importantly, my own solitary thoughts. I likely will repeat this in the coming months. Anything to break up the monotony of those long, dark hours. I hope it instills in me a new appreciation of these inevitable winter months.

“Food, fire, walks, dreams, cold, sleep, love, slowness, time, quiet, books, seasons – all these things, which are not really things, but moments of life – take on a different quality at night-time, where the moon reflects the light of the sun, and we have time to reflect what life is to us, knowing that it passes, and that every bit of it, in its change and its difference, is the here and now of what we have. Life is too short to be all daylight. Night is not less; it’s more.”

And it was more, for one night anyway.