Lemon Buttermilk Pudding Cake
Wow, 2 days and it seems like I haven’t been here for weeks. HOW did it get to be July? I wouldn’t believe it if the calendar didn’t say it was so.
To give a quick rundown of those 48 undocumented hours: I spent most of July 1st shopping and cooking for a barbecue for 60 that happened last night on a beautiful farm out toward Airdrie, with about a 6 hour chunk of the afternoon spent a) at my sister’s new house eating Dilly Bars and b) a backyard Canada Day party potluck, to which I brought maple cupcakes and forgot my camera. W was in little boy heaven; 19 kids in the rec room with air hockey, video games and rock band wii. Mike was in big boy heaven across in the field playing soccer for 3 hours. I ditched them at about 7 to go home and get some work done, and had to go back in my PJs to drag them out at close to 10.
Yesterday I was up at 5:30 to head to the CBC pancake breakfast, at which I took a dunk in the dunk tank (why do they not make dunk hot tubs?) in my jeans skirt, which I’m pretty sure went up over my head as I went in, then spent the rest of the day prepping for that dinner on the farm, with two 3 year olds and a 4 year old in the house (which worked out quite nicely, actually; there were miraculously fewer skirmishes than there would have been demands on me to entertain/remove forks from electrical sockets had W been on his own). I headed out (with, as it turns out, far too much food, and did I mention I set off their smoke alarm?) at around 4 and got home at close to midnight, in a hailstorm, having forgotten my wallet, almost run out of gas and driven to Airdrie to get $6.50 worth’ using the change I scrounged up from various nooks and crannies in the car.
So tonight I was absolutely not up for cooking. At all. (Besides, I was making 100 pavlovas for a demo at the Stampede on Sunday and food for our Stampede party tomorrow. So technically I was cooking anyway, just nothing edible in the immediate future.) We picked up some chicken Vietnamese subs downtown at Thi Thi (really, truly the best in town) and ate the last of a lemon buttermilk pudding cake I made for an article on desserts affected by gravity. It’s one of those cakes that separates into an airy cake and zingy sauce; it’s a nice, light version – some tend to be really heavy, with twice as much sugar. This makes a nice summer dessert; it can be made ahead and chilled, then served in a bowl with fresh berries.
Lemon Buttermilk Pudding Cake
Lemon pudding cake and frozen pineapple mousse were my Grandma’s staple desserts; this version uses buttermilk and has a more souffle-like texture than many versions that are made with boiling water poured overtop. Adapted from Bon Appétit, January 2005.
1 1/2 cup buttermilk
1 cup sugar, divided
4 large eggs, separated
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup butter, melted, or canola oil
pinch saltPreheat the oven to 350°F.
In a large bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, 1/2 cup of the sugar, the egg yolks, lemon juice, flour and butter until smooth. In a clean glass or stainless steel bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form; continue beating, gradually adding the remaining 1/2 cup sugar, until the mixture is thick and glossy and holds stiff peaks. Gently fold the whites into the buttermilk mixture and scrape into an 8”x8” or 9”x9” pan that has been sprayed with nonstick spray.
Set the pan into a larger pan – 9”x13” works well – and pour enough hot water into the larger pan to come halfway up the sides of the inner pan. Bake for about 45 minutes, until the cake is puffed and golden, and the top is springy to the touch.
Remove the cake from the water bath and cool for at least half an hour if you want to serve it warm, or cool it completely and then chill in the refrigerator before serving in shallow bowls, with a spoon. Serves 9.
As I write this I can hear Bon Jovi emanating from the Stampede grounds (You Give Love a Bad Name – every word) – ooh, and now fireworks. We live close enough to see them from the roof if you climb out W’s bedroom window (he is going to have an easy time of sneaking out in a decade or so) and to walk down to go on rides and get mini donuts, or watch the chucks from the top of Scotsmans hill. All of which is a lot of fun, but to be perfectly honest I’m glad we’re heading to Tofino next weekend. (And yes, bringing my laptop! And possibly my HD camera to do some GoodBite stuff.)
And hey – it’s Free Stuff Friday! One of you lovely lot has offered up a hefty prize pack – Christina, whom I met through this blog, met me at IKEA for coffee and brought some Epicure Selections for me to give away. It’s funny, how you hear of something new and then hear it over and over from every direction. I hadn’t heard of ES until I heard Christina was a rep for the company, and since then I have heard some reference to either the company or its products almost a dozen times. I love that it’s a Canadian company – started by a woman named Sylvie on Vancouver Island started out selling four homemade spice blends from her station wagon at local markets and trade shows and turned it into a thriving company with catalogs and thousands of independent consultants across Canada. (The company is set up like Tupperware; you arrange a party, only it’s a tasting party and you get to eat and hang out and buy stuff that’s reasonably priced and you’ll actually use, rather than going home with $80 worth of candles.) Good on ya, girl.
So in this box I have a lovely bottle of sherry vinegar in a fancy tubular (totally) cardboard canister, Tex-Mex grilling sauce, and jars of pesto herb mix, lemon dilly dip mix, oriental stir-fry seasoning and pesto artichoke dip mix, which it’s really hard not to keep for myself, as I am a sucker for all variations on the artichoke dip theme. (They all have simple recipes printed on the sides of the jars. Great idea.)
Thanks Christina! So – what was for dinner last night?
One Year Ago: Broccoli-Cheese Soup and Upside-down Caramelized Onion Pan Bread
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July 03 2009 | cake | 65 Comments »
