Is it safe to claim the title of Queen of Lemon Cakes yet? I think my love of lemony cakes has been well established and I hope I’ve turned a few of you onto to the magic that is citrus-y baked goods in the process.

I saw this recipe in the May issue of Bon Appétit as I was flying back from Michigan one sleepy morning. Of course I knew I’d have to make it. There have been cakes with butter, cakes with cream, but not yet a lemon cake made with thick Greek yoghurt and oil. I had to try it and happily it didn’t disappoint. In fact, it’s a gorgeous cake, specked with lemon zest and packed full of flavour.

French Yoghurt Cake
from Bon Appétit, May, 2012

Ingredients

This granola is everything I love about granola: big chunks of nuts and gooey, chewy dried fruit, alongside smaller, easy-to-chew oats and seeds all bound up in a deep, rich honey coating and toasted to a dark, cinnamon-y perfection.

I don’t know about you but granola is one of my very favourite things to eat for breakfast. I love having a bowl of it with milk and it’s also amazing with yoghurt. Either way I almost always chop a banana on top of it. It provides that sweet kick I often crave first thing in the morning and yet it’s refreshing with milk or yoghurt and eating all those oats and nuts is wonderful. Texturally it’s spot on.

I adore whole almonds in cereal – I often add them to oatmeal or warm spiced breakfast quinoa – I just love the texture and crunch of them whole with their skins. I can’t be messing around with the slivered variety – I just don’t see the point of them. Cranberries are a great flavour to combine with almonds and I also added dried cherries here which work marvelously.

Here’s the very best thing about making granola if you never have – it’s all about delving into the depths of your kitchen cupboards and using up bits and bobs of what you have. What I happened to have surplus of on hand, you see here. So long as you have rolled oats for a base and some kind of nut and dried fruit you’re good to go! Just get inventive.

In terms of texture, you can also play around. I happen to love big chunks of things in my granola – like the whole almonds – but if you don’t then chop everything. Just pick flavours and textures you love and do your thing. Enjoy!

Almond and Cranberry Granola
adapted from Alice Currah

Notes: if you prefer a less chunky granola then be sure to chop the nuts up well. If you’re using those big, juicy organic dried cherries/cranberries then you might want to hold them back and only add them to the mix about half way through baking – otherwise they will be pretty dang crunchy.

Ingredients

• 3 cups/ 255 grams rolled oats (not the instant kind)
• 1/2 cup/ 43 grams wheat flakes
• 1/2 cup/ 72 grams sunflower seeds
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 3/4 cup/ 94 grams almonds (I like to leave half of them whole and roughly chop the rest)
• 1/4 cup/ 30 grams mix of chopped pecans and whole hazelnuts
• 3/4 cup/ 113 grams dried cranberries
• 1/4 cup/ 38 grams dried cherries
• 1/4 cup/ 56 grams vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup/ 7.3 grams brown sugar
• 1/4 cup/ 85 grams honey
• 2 tablespoons water

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 300F/ 150C.
2. Combine rolled oats, wheat flakes, sunflower seeds, cinnamon, almonds, pecans, hazelnuts, cranberries, and cherries in a large bowl.
3. In a separate bowl combine vegetable oil, brown sugar, honey, and water and whisk gently to combine.
4. Add the honey mixture to the dry ingredients and mix with your hands until all the oats are evenly coated.  Transfer wet granola evenly on to two large cookie sheets lined with parchment paper.
5. Cook for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes.
6. Remove from oven and allow granola to completely cool before serving.  Don’t worry if the granola doesn’t seem super crunchy after coming out of the oven.  It will crisp up once completely cooled. Keeps in a tightly fastened container in a cool, dry place for a few weeks.

My lovelies, what are you up to this weekend? I’m hoping for some quality time with a great friend as well as some delicious tacos from one of our favourite places in town. Hope you have a fun one! Here are some delicious posts from around the web…

A gorgeous cake from a blog I really love.

This looks like one of my very favourite breakfasts, gone bananas.

I may have a thing for fritters.

An elegant and grown up galette.

And a perfectly simple one too.

If this doesn’t tickle your taste buds nothing will.

What a stunning cake!

How to cook perfect garlic bread.

One more amazing cake for the road!

P.S. Look what my boss brought back from Paris!

(Photo courtesy of Amy Johnson/ She Wears Many Hats.)

Today I wanted to share a healthy, simple lunch idea with you guys: baked quinoa and millet patties. They taste so good inside a warmed pita bread alongside a simple salad with lemony vinaigrette.

I had a very virtuous Sunday this weekend. My plans to spend all day at the May Day Parade were scuppered when it got cancelled due to weather (we’re having April showers in May…) and so I was left with not a single plan for the day.

First, I made up a batch of Warm Breakfast Quinoa for the week. Halo shining, I decided while I was at it I’d prepare some healthy lunches too. This never happens – instead everyday I scramble around my kitchen trying to find something that my co-workers won’t judge me for eating as I rush out of the door (side note: bringing a LOT of cookies to work helps avoid the squinty-eyed weird looks from happening too often; being the Bringer of Baked Goods is a good thing).

I made up half of the recipe below, adapting Heidi Swanson’s original to use millet as well as quinoa and parsley instead of dill (which I hate). They taste excellent with a healthy dash of sriracha sauce and a couple of them would go down a treat at breakfast time with a fried egg and some wilted greens.

Baked Quinoa and Millet Patties
adapted from 101 Cookbooks

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups / 6 oz /170 g cooked quinoa, at room temperature*
• 1 1/4 cups / 6 oz/ 170 g cooked millet at room temperature*
• 5 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
• 1/3 cup/ .5 oz /15 g finely chopped fresh chives
• 1/3 cup /.5 oz /15 g finely chopped fresh parsley
• 1 cup / 1.5 oz /45 g finely chopped kale
• 1 yellow onion, finely chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 cup / 3.5 oz /100 g bread crumbs, plus more if needed
• water or a bit of flour, if needed
• 1/3 cup / .5 oz / 15 g crumbled feta cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400F / 200C.
2. Combine the quinoa, millet, eggs, and salt in a medium bowl. Stir in the chives, parsley, kale, onion, garlic, and cumin. Stir well.
3. Add the baking powder and bread crumbs, stir, and let sit for a few minutes so the crumbs can absorb some of the moisture.
4. Gently stir in the feta.
5. Form mixture into twelve 1-inch / 2.5cm thick patties with your hands. It seems best to err on the very moist side to avoid a not-overly-dry patty, but you can add more bread crumbs, a bit at a time, to firm up the mixture, if you need to. If the mixture is too dry then add a bit more beaten egg or water to moisten it.
6. Arrange the patties with a bit of space between each on a Silpat-lined (or greased) baking sheet. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the bottoms are brown. Flip and bake for another 5 minutes.
7. Enjoy hot, or allow to cool to room temperature on a cooling rack. Makes about a dozen patties.

*To cook a batch of quinoa and millet: Combine 1 cups/ 6 oz/1700 g each of well-rinsed uncooked quinoa and millet with 3 cups / 700 ml water and 1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, cover, decrease the heat, and simmer for 25 to 30 minutes, until the quinoa and millet mixture is tender and you can see the little quinoa curlicues.

Happy Friday! What do you have up your sleeve for the weekend? We’re having friends over for lunch tomorrow and I’m excited to make some delicious food for us all. Sunday is the May Day Parade, which is kind of a big deal in Minneapolis. Oh, and you can bet I’ll be finding some tacos to eat in celebration of Cinco de Mayo. Here are some fun posts from around the web…

Having a Cinco de Mayo party? Some ideas to get you started.

Two banana cakes.

Eleven deliciously healthy salads to make.

The last suppers of prisoners on death row, in photographs. Moving.

May I suggest you make this for a lovely weeknight dinner?

Now I’m all rosy-eyed for home.

Why Do Recipe Writers Lie About How Long It Takes To Caramelize Onions?

Lemon and arugula farfalle with basil and feta. YES.

Are any of the world’s best restaurants of 2012 near you?

Talking of Cinco…

(Photo courtesy of Iowa Girl Eats.)

There’s a story behind that photograph. It was taken by my friend Tiffany who was filming me for a class project she had. So that person there sifting in the stripes? That’s me. We spent an entire afternoon in my little kitchen as she made a film, interviewing me and taking some gorgeous, gorgeous shots of my food. Never have any of my creations looked so pretty. She’s one talented lady. She also geeked out with me about shallow depth of field and a plate of asparagus which I think pretty much makes us (nerdy) friends for life.

This cake got to be a bit of a star for the day, since I’d made it that morning. It’s a beauty of a cake – chocolatey with a lovely touch of Earl Grey and that oh-so necessary hint of salt to bring out the flavours.

It’s light and perfect any time of day but the most important thing for you to know is that it gets better after a couple of days. I always freak out a little that my baked goods are going to go stale overnight but this is not so! This cake, stored properly, becomes a little more dense – creamy even – after a day or too, and so chocolatey and wonderful. I ate half of the thing myself. And that is no exaggeration.

Earl Grey Chocolate Cake
from Real Simple via Shutterbean

Ingredients

• 6 Earl Grey tea bags or 2 tablespoons loose Earl Grey tea
• 1 cup water
• 113g/ 4oz/ 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
• 3 eggs
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 113g/ 4oz bittersweet chocolate, melted in a double-broiler and cooled
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher/coarse salt
• 1/4 cup plain yoghurt
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• powdered/ confectioners’ sugar, to dust

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350F. Grease an 8-cup bundt tube pan with neutral oil.
2. Brew the tea in hot water 3 to 5 minutes. Remove the tea bags or strain the leaves and set the brewed tea aside.
3. Beat the butter, eggs, and granulated sugar until fluffy. Stir in the melted chocolate. Beat in the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, yoghurt, sour cream, and brewed tea. Pour into bundt pan.
4. Bake 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out with a few crumbs attached. Remove from oven and let stand 5 minutes.
5. Turn out of pan and cool on a wire rack. Dust with confectioners’ sugar and serve. Keeps, stored in an airtight container at room temperature, for several days.

This cake is a simple English treat – lemony but not overly so, nor too sweet, and perfect with some thick compote or a dollop of lemon curd on top.

I spent several hours on Friday night baking for the bake sale I mentioned participating in. I made double chocolate chunk cookies with sea salt and lemon-drenched lemon cake – two of my favourites! But of course, since I was packaging it up for other people I didn’t get a chance to steal myself a slice of cake and so I was left hankering for something lemony.

Enter this cake. Yes, lemony, but a completely different beast to that other one. This is much more of a simple everyday cake, jazzed up with some lemon zest and juice and perfect if you’re in the mood for something sweet but not dessert-like or cloying.

I always thought that Madeira cake came from the islands of Madeira, but no!  Evidently, centuries back in the U.K. it was popular to eat a slice of this cake with a glass of Madeira wine. If you have some on hand then please give it a go and report back but personally I’d recommend it with a good cup of tea. Enjoy!

Madeira Cake
adapted from Nigella Lawson

Ingredients

• 240g/8.25oz softened unsalted butter
• 200g/7oz caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
• Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 3 large eggs
• 320g/ 2.5 cups all-purpose/plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking soda

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 170ºC/330F. Butter a 9- by 5- inch (23 x 13 cm) loaf tin, buttered and dust with flour, tapping out excess. Set aside.
2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda and set aside.
3. Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy and light, and add the lemon zest.
4. Add the eggs one at a time with a tablespoon of the flour for each egg to prevent the mixture curdling.
5. Gently mix in the rest of the flour and, finally, the lemon juice. Transfer batter to prepared pan and  sprinkle with about 2 tbsp sugar. Bake for 45 minutes to an hour or until a cake-tester comes out clean.
6. Remove to a wire rack, and let cool in the tin before turning out.

Welcome to the weekend! What will you be up to? Any grand cooking plans? I’m participating in a Blogger Bake Sale to benefit Share our Strength‘s No Child Hungry campaign. If you live in the area then I’d love it if you stopped by and said hi! It’s this Saturday, April 28th from 12-3pm at Midtown Global Market in stall #158, right by Mapps Coffee. (Psst. I’ll be selling some of these and also some of this!)

Here are some fun links from around the web…

Beet dumplings sound delicious and look so pretty!

Sweet, warm, creamy comfort in a bowl.

It’s easy as {pizza} pie!

My new favourite (local!) food blog find.

Make your own pho.

Oh-so-English, jam tarts.

Spring in a single plate.

How to cook perfect chocolate chip cookies. Do you agree?

I’ll be making some of these on the asap. Holy smokes!

P.S. I’m guest posting over on the Jigsaw-London blog today for Brit Week – read it here if you’d like!

(Photo courtesy of Laksmi Wennakoski-Bielicki.)

All of a sudden the price of a bunch of asparagus plummets from its mind-boggling heights of $7/pound and I am *there* in a flash, hoarding it for dishes like this glorious beast. Oh and this too. The emergence of fresh seasonal vegetables also excites me for more off the cuff cooking. Random salads – and ditching the recipes in favour of just enjoying how flavours work together.

That said, there’s also space in my heart (and belly) for this asparagus risotto. Might I suggest you make some room too? Dan and I made this together on a sunny, chilly spring afternoon, methodically adding warmed chicken stock to the crisp rice, watching it bubble and soak up the moisture until we added more.

I can’t tell you how much I love the process of risotto: the smell of white wine de-glazing and that final glorious flourish of butter and a huge double-handful of Parmesan cheese just about sends me over the edge.

Some of the asparagus here is boiled and pureed, then added towards the end of the cooking process, giving the whole dish a spring-like green tint and really infusing the asparagus flavour. Texture isn’t ignored though and the remaining pieces and tips of asparagus are added whole for a wonderful crunch against the risotto’s creaminess. Utter perfection with a chilled glass of white wine.

Asparagus Risotto
adapted from The New York Times

Ingredients

• 1 pound asparagus, tough ends trimmed and cut into one-inch-long pieces, tips reserved
• 4 to 6 cups chicken stock
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 3 tablespoons butter
• bulb of one spring onion, diced
• 1 shallot, diced
• 1 1/2 cups Arborio rice
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• Salt to taste
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese.

Directions

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add half the asparagus stalks and cook until quite soft, at least 5 minutes. Transfer cooked asparagus to a food processor and add just a touch of water – enough only to allow the machine to puree until smooth; set aside.
2. Put stock in a medium saucepan over low heat. Put oil and 1 tablespoon butter in a large, deep nonstick skillet over medium heat. When it is hot, add onion, stirring occasionally until it softens, 3 to 5 minutes.
3. Add rice and cook, stirring occasionally, until it is glossy, about 2 to 3 minutes. Add white wine, stir, and let liquid bubble away. Add a large pinch of salt. Add warmed stock, 1/2 cup or so at a time, stirring occasionally. Each time the stock has just about evaporated, add more.
4. After about 15 minutes, add the remaining asparagus pieces and tips, continuing to add stock when necessary. In 5 minutes, begin tasting rice. You want it to be tender but with a bit of crunch; it could take as long as 30 minutes total to reach this stage. When it does, stir in 1/4 cup asparagus puree. Remove skillet from heat, add remaining butter and stir briskly. Add Parmesan and stir briskly, then taste and adjust seasoning. Serve immediately.

I’m one of those slightly irritating people that gets pretty darn excited around this time of year because all of a sudden my beloved citrus is fading and – oh! look! asparagus! rhubarb! spring! Yep, that’s me. Mostly I keep this excitement inside because really, I don’t want to annoy everyone, but seeing all these things pop up means only one thing: soon I can wear sandals, bare my legs, sit in the sun, go swimming, and make summer pies. And that, friends, is happiness to me.

Rhubarb feels really English to me – Rhubarb and Custard anyone?! – although living in the States my inkling is to put it in a pie before I make rhubarb and custard or a crumble. The first thing I did with this bunch – my very first of the season – was simply to stew it into a compote with a mix of spices, sugar, and lemon juice. Oh and some strawberries! Which smelled too good not to buy even though I’m well aware it’s not strawberry season yet. Look, nobody’s perfect.

The oh-so sweet compote went beautifully on these buckwheat/wholewheat flour waffles which aren’t too sweet. A dollop of crème fraîche adds a lovely tang. Clearly, bacon is a must on the side. Brits, I know it’s hard to wrap your head around bacon with a sweet breakfast but I urge you to give it a try. If you like sweet-salty combos otherwise (think chocolate sea salt cookies or salted caramel) then you’ll love it. Really, I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather have with waffles or pancakes than bacon.

Oh and lastly, any leftover compote can be refrigerated for several days and gores wonderfully with yoghurt and granola in a parfait.

Buckwheat Waffles with Rhubarb Strawberry Compote
adapted from my buckwheat pancakes and rhubarb compote

Ingredients

For the waffles

• 1 cup buckwheat flour
• 1 cup wholewheat flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 3/4 cups buttermilk or milk
• 2 large eggs
• 3 tbsp honey
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• canola oil, to grease waffle maker

For the compote

• 8oz medium rhubarb stalks leaves removed, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 8oz strawberries, hulled and cut into quarters
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Directions

1. Make the compote: In a medium saucepan, mix the rhubarb, strawberries, sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon and spices, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer, stirring frequently, until the rhubarb is tender but not falling apart, about 8 minutes. Transfer the rhubarb to a small bowl and let cool or cover and refrigerate until thick, at least 1 hour. (Can be made up to a day in advance.)
2. Melt two tablespoons unsalted butter in a small pan and set aside to cool slightly.
3. Combine buckwheat flour, wholewheat flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg in a medium sized bowl and whisk together.
4. In a separate, larger bowl combine buttermilk, eggs, honey, and melted butter. Whisk til the mixture is smooth and completely blended.
5. Grease waffle iron with canola oil using a pastry brush and heat. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and use a spatula to mix until just combined. Pour some the mixture into heated waffle maker. Cook to manufacturer’s instructions. Serve immediately with compote and crème fraîche. Makes 2 or 3 large waffles.