Citrus Carnival
My first key lime pie. And look how cute my mother's flower arrangement is with the fabu pieSo the blog before last I said I was going to make a key lime pie for my friend Eduardo. I was inspired to do so because I was in my favorite store ever - Trader Joes - and they had these fab little bags of key limes. I grabbed one and thought, since I have known Eduardo I have wanted to make him a key lime pie. I went on-line and started looking for recipes. I particularly like Martha Stewart's recipes although they can be overly complicated sometimes. While I was searching through her recipe index, I also found a recipe for Key Lime Sables. It is basically a shortbread cookie with key lime curd in the middle. Yum. I knew I was on my way to greatness. Around the same time as the discovery of the key limes my mother sent me some pages from a magazine on a lemon cake and super cute cake decorating ideas. This cake looked amazing and the idea of a lemon cake in summer sounded down right delicious.
I was at the salsa studio teaching one night and I felt the need to bake some lemon mini-cupcakes for my upcoming trip to the Cape - I hate to go empty handed. I got home, went to my fruit guy on the corner, bought some (teeny) lemons and was ready to go.
I decided to start with the Sables because both the curd and the shortbread needed to be refrigerated. The lime curd was SUPER easy except that key limes are teensy weensy and it takes a lot to get even a 1/4 cup of juice. So it was a little time consuming - ahem, to say the least. When I got through squeezing the limes and mixing everything together, I moved onto the shortbread - which I have never made before. I usually substitute butter for margarine and all that, but with Martha's recipes I really try to follow it to the letter. I did. I put the dough in the freezer for a quick cool down and moved onto the key lime pie.
My mother told me about this "AMAZING" key lime pie recipe that she had that used lime-aid, and was no muss no fuss, but I wanted to go the traditional route and really try and make this happen in a big way. Pies are not my specialty. I mean I can recall the time I entered an apple pie contest confident that even though I had never made a pie before I would make the best damn pie that ever existed. My pie smelled like it was made from the nectar of the gods and tasted like dirt. So I tread lightly when it comes to pies now.
So, so confident I would win the blue ribbon at the contest. Little did I know making pies took such skill...I started with the pie crust. Graham cracker crust - no problem. Except for some reason mine was not dry and there wasn't much of it. Shoot. This doesn't seem like it is going well so far. So I start throwing in more graham crackers and more graham crackers hoping that eventually I would get the right consistency. I crossed my fingers, pressed it into the pie pan, and put it in the oven. Next was the curd. The curd was surprisingly easy. You basically pour all of the ingredients into a bowl and stir it up. The texture is really thick and looks delicioso. You pour the batter into the cooled pie crust, put it back in the oven for like 15 minutes and it is done. So easy. Oh yeah, except for juicing those pesky little key limes. I also made homemade whipped cream to top the citrus delight, but I walked away for a little too long - bless the stand mixer - and my whipped cream was borderline sweet butter. Ugh. Was that the start of an ill- fated baking adventure?
I then turned my attention to the shortbread that was all nice and cool. I have a new vintage rolling pin that I was super excited to use - they aren't just for chasing people around they yard you know - and I started rolling out the shortbread. It looked really good and smelled delicious. They showed so much promise. I put the cookies on parchment and popped them in the oven and went onto project number 3 the lemon cake. After 8 minutes I look inside my beloved oven and what do I see? A hot oozy mess. Omg! The cookies had spread like Jabba the Hut's booty. You think I am joking, but I am not. I was devastated. This did not bode well at all. The plan was the pie for Eduardo, the cookies for home, and the lemon cupcakes for my sister, now what? I had all of this delicious lime curd sitting in the fridge begging to be used. I no time to mourn I had a cake to make. So I grabbed the rest of the dough and put it back in the freezer and turned my attention to the vegan cupcakes. I mean cake is my specialty - although truly, I was pretty demoralized.
This lemon recipe was crazy easy. Easier than the other vegan recipes that I have done and there was a good amount of lemon juice and lemon rind in them. The secret ingredient that makes it all happen is the apple cider vinegar. It makes the cakes rise and gives them an unbelievable texture. Awesome. Those went in the oven, but they hardly seemed enough so I made another batch. I wanted to also make a lemon chiffon buttercream, but I ran out of lemons on the last batch of cupcakes. Drat. So I decided to go for a lighter vanilla buttercream than I usually make. The last time I made this recipe, however, I had a crater cake disaster - as you may recall. So needless to say I was nervous. But I do learn from my mistakes so I was VERY careful with the amount of soy milk I was adding. Slowly, slowly I turn(ed) - please let's not confuse my buttercream with Niagara Falls - and the texture was really good. The cupcakes smelled AMAZING when they came out of the oven and they had this really pretty yellow hue to them. Lucky for me I learned with the friands that I needed to use a spoon to aid in the removal of my cupcakes - this recipe said not to use cupcake liners. See...I do learn from my mistakes!
Mood lighting - Vegan Lemon cupcakes with vegan buttercream frosting. They needed a garnish because they were looking a little plain and my mother suggested blueberries. The suggestion was brilliance. They look summery, gorgeous & delicious.
Serving up the key lime BBQ style at the Rosebay.
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