Lemon Tree, Very Pretty

As I mentioned in my last post our lemon tree is simply loaded with lemon. I’ve been trying new recipes on my family and thought I’d share them here.

The following two recipes were sent to me by my friend Deanne.

Lemon Butter:
4 eggs beaten
4 large lemons
500g sugar
125g butter

Grate rind of lemons and squeeze juice. Place butter and sugar in double saucepan. When butter is melted add juice and grated rind of lemons. Then add eggs. Stir until smooth and thickened- about 20mins. Bottle and seal, store in refrigerator.
Passionfruit butter: use 10 passionfruit instead of lemons.

PC wondered why the colour was a bit ‘brown’, the truth was I ran out of white sugar and had to mix with raw. Tastes nice still.

Lemon Tartlets:
1/2 C caster sugar
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
3 sheets shortcrust pastry- just thawed
3 eggs, lightly beaten
2/3 C thickened cream

Preheat oven to 200-220 C. Whisk sugar with zest and juice in a jug- set aside to let sugar dissolve.
grease 3 x 12 patty pans, cut pastry to fit and push down. Pierce the bottom of the pastry once or twice with a fork, place in fridge until mixture is ready. Add cream and eggs to lemon mixture and whisk to combine. pour into pastry shells. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until filling is just set. Cool in pans for 10 minutes and dust with icing sugar to serve.

These were a hit with some of the children, some found it a bit too ‘lemony’ though. But then I haven’t really done a great deal of cooking with lemon.

And I just had to find a Lemon Pudding recipe, we ate these as children. When I rang my brother Chris that night and told him what I’d cooked he waxed lyrical. This is for you Chris.

Lemon Pudding

4 eggs, separated
1 cup caster sugar
50g butter,
softened zest of 2 lemons
1/3 cup self-raising flour,
sifted juice of 3 lemons
1 1/2 cups milk

Preheat the oven to 160°C.Wash the lemons, remove the zest from two and then juice all three. Separate the eggs.Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form. Add half the caster sugar, a little at a time, until it is fully incorporated and the mixture is glossy.Cream the butter with the rest of the caster sugar and the lemon zest.Add the egg yolks, then the flour, lemon juice and milk. Mix thoroughly.Add a little of the meringue mix, then gently fold in the remainder.Tip into a pudding basin. Stand the basin in a baking dish, then half fill the baking dish with luke-warm water. This will stop the base of the pudding from burning.Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until the top has set and is lightly browned.

Can you believe PC had never had a lemon pudding! I had to reassure him that ‘yes it was meant to be runny underneath’. I’d made a self-saucing pudding, although I have a suspicion it wasn’t meant to be that runny, I think it did need 60min. He is still asking me to make a rice pudding, its been so long, I’ll have to find a recipe.

Oh and in my last post Fe generously shared recipes for lemon cordial and Welsh nectar. Thanks Fe:) And Judy tells me that lemon trees are not that common in backyards in America. I’m learning all the time;)

If anyone is wondering about where they have heard the post heading, its an old song sung by Peter, Paul and Mary. Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet. No I’m not that old but my dad used to sing it.