Lemon and sugar, an all time delectable combination and one of my all time favorites in dessert. If I had my way I would squeeze in either lemon juice or its essence into any and every dessert. So, here I am digging into warm Lemon Lava cake, the existence of which I was unaware of until one fine evening my sister Suhaila, texts me from Mysore,(Karnataka, India) about how tempting a certain "Lemon" Lava cake appeared on a Cooking T.V show and that I should be giving it a try soon. I was intrigued by her message and drool emojis and the fact that inspite of us staying in different parts of the world our common taste bud trashes distance. Well, I did a little study on this Lava cake technique and got on to whisk it up. Hey but wait, is it going to be that easy? Na! first attempt was a disaster. Cut two..... tried another recipe, another technique...edible but unsatisfactory. Ended with a third time boooo and decided not to try it anymore... Hey but this was not the recipe to give up on. Few months later on an unplanned visit to India, here I am digging into hot Lemon Lava cake on a quite and cool evening, along with Suhaila chatting over coffee and more. Nothing is impossible after all.
In my extreme focus, on trying not to make this attempt a flop, I forgot to click step by step pictures to guide you. Will definitely upload fresh ones some time soon. I'm glad it came out just the way I expected. Efforts and patience equally rewarding. So, go ahead give it a try, never mind if it didn't turn out just right....don't give up. This recipe adapted from Rachel Khoo, just restored my faith in making a simple lemon Lava cake.
The oozing lemon lava when you cut through the soft warm cake is feast for the eyes, I could hear my taste buds say, "...its pleasantly tart and well balanced with the soft lemon flavored cake...well done Yasmeen.
Serve topped with mixed berries or sprinkled icing sugar or ice- cream, whipped cream or have it simply by itself, and let the beautiful flavors do the talking.
I have learnt a couple of things from my flop attempts on this, which I would like to point out.
1. Make the lemon curd and put it in the fridge, ahead of time so that it achieves and maintains its creamy consistency on chilling.
2. Use muffin tray, or remekins to bake these. For some reason, cup cake moulds didn't work for me.
3. Grease the moulds generously and dust with white sugar, to enable de-moulding immediately once out of oven.
4. Serve immediately.
"Flop" tastes good in its own way, so that "Hit" tastes even better. We learn a lot from little things in life, don't we? Reminded me of the wordings from a book, I had read long long time ago, or say the name of the book itself.
"Success is never ending, Failure is never Final" -Robert H. Schuller.
Lesson learnt: When life gives you lemons, make Lemon Dessert,
P.s: ..even when it throws lemons at you for the third, fourth, fifth or the umpteenth time. :)
Suh this post is for you girl.
Ingredients
- For the lemon curd:-
- Lemon Juice-1/2 cup
- White sugar- 200 gms/ 1 cup approx
- Eggs -2
- Unsalted butter- 3 1/2 tbsp
- Salt- a pinch
- For the Cakes:-
- Unsalted butter- 100 gms (soft)/ 7tbsp
- Sugar- 80 gms/ 5tbsp+ 1tsp
- Egg- 2
- Milk- 2 tbsp
- Lemon zest- 1 tsp
- All purpose flour- 100 gms/ 3/4cup +1 tbsp
Directions
- To make lemon curd:-
- 1Place all the ingredients mentioned under "For the Lemon curd" except the butter in a sauce pan on low heat.
- 2Heat , (5-8 mins)or until mixture thickens, while whisking continuously to avoid lump formation from egg. Avoid the mixture from boiling.
- 3Once the mixture has thickened, whisk in the butter and take off heat. Stir until all the butter has melted.
Note: If little curdled lumps have formed due to over heating egg, at this point you can pass the mixture through a seive and pour it into a bowl, proceed to step -4. - 4Pour out the Lemon curd mixture into a bowl and cover it with a cling film touching its surface to avoid skin formation. Place it in the fridge and let it chill for 1-2 hours before using.
- To make the Cakes:-
- 1Preheat oven. Butter six remekins, or muffin pans and dust them generously with sugar.
- 2In a mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy.
- 3Lightly beat the eggs separately and gradually add them to the butter-sugar mix, beating all the time. Add milk and lemon zest, mix. Add the flour and mix until incorporated well.
- 4Now this is the tricky part, follow these steps very carefully.
a. Fill each ramekin about 1/3 full.
b. Using a spoon, make a well in the middle by pushing the batter away from the middle to the sides.
c. Place 1 tbsp of the chilled Lemon curd in the created well.
d. Gently cover the curd with more batter until ramekin is 3/4 full. - 5Bake in pre-heated oven for 15-20 mins, or until the tops spring back on touch.
- 6Once done, run a knife immediately around the sides and turn out the still hot cakes from ramekins on to plates. Serve straight away topped with berries or sprinkled with icing sugar or as it is, tastes yumm alike. Simply delish!
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Yasmeen Basheer Manna
