Something bold

Dear reader, it’s been a long while since I’ve waxed on longingly about a fruit. In the early days of Aubergine, the yearning was a bit of a constant. Red currants and Montmorency cherries provoke immense excitement, the likes of which may end in you riding mechanical bulls or jumping out or airplanes. Unlike red currants and cherries, though, my lemon love is big. It began somewhere around lemon meringue pie and swerved around the dinner table during the fourth grade, where I’d bite down into the sour flesh and bitter pith with astonishing regularity (I have the poor enamel to prove it – an interesting badge of honour.)

Lemons make for a beautiful and inexpensive table display. Their juice brightens soups and stews. Salt-cured (otherwise known as preserved), they’re fantastic in African tagines. And quite frankly, while I love chocolate as much as the next girl, hand me over a lemon-flavoured dessert and I’m as good as yours. I should probably keep that last tidbit to myself.

And so this weekend I went about making lemon curd, and the following Lemon, Almond & Cornmeal cake. When I first removed the cake from the oven, I thought the recipe had called for entirely too much butter. The parchment was drenched in grease and the cake seemed perhaps too moist. But trust me, it dries out, and the butter ensures it stays moist (does anyone actually like this word?). The crumb is loose and seems to dissolve on the tip of your tongue, and the lemon is obscenely bold. I’ve eaten this cake warm and alone (the cake, I mean) and I’ve eaten it in the company of co-workers, dressed with a dollop of crème fraiche. I’ve eaten it for dessert after dinner and with afternoon tea. It’s the kind of recipe you want in your repertoire, the kind of thing you’d serve to good friends on a Saturday, the kind of thing you fall in love with whether you are ten or twenty-six.

Find the recipe over here at Simple Bites (I used regular lemons in place of the Meyer ones.)