Lemon Queen Cakes and birthday season memories

Hello everybody! The Fresh Pioneer is back and this is a redo recipe from 2012, but it's a delicious recipe that will knock your socks off. (Your blood sugar will never forgive you, but that's another story.)

royal.uk.gov

 Edna kept talking about 'queen' cakes. They sounded good until she got to the part about them being not quite cooked. WHAT???

 So, I had to try it out. I've always been told that the cake MUST BE COOKED completely. If I'd known raw cake was okay to serve, I wouldn't have had to poke so many cakes in my life. All those little sticks. All those little holes. All those wasted minutes.

If this worked out, I might never have to time a cake again. I'd just cook it... halfway.

Beat together (Isn't that the way all good recipes start??)

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 tbs grated lemon zest. MMMMM.

4 eggs separated (no lawyer needed)

Add to this mixture

1/2 cup lemon juice

3/4 cup flour

1 1/4 cup whole milk

1/4 tsp salt

Whisk the leftover egg whites until fluffy and fold into batter gently.

Pour into buttered ramekins.

I think you actually have to have them for this recipe. Edna said these could be cooked into oven safe teacups, but that kind of glassware is RARE around here. :) Vintage glass like this... if you see it, snatch it up and make queen cakes!

Set each ramekin in an inch or so of water.

30-32 minutes at 350, until firm on top. Here's the thing, there's no need to poke them! The bottom is pudding! Crazy, huh? I guess it gets hot enough that the uncooked cake won't kill you. Edna was telling me the bottom is like the best lemon cream I've ever tasted.

I was still thinking, "RAW! DANGER!" (Look at those pretty food poisoning microbes!)

 But hey, Edna knows best.

So, now whip 4 egg whites, 1 cup sugar, and 1/8 tsp salt into a stiff meringue. Add it to the top. Now, if you have one of those uber-cool kitchen blow torches, now would be the time to bring that out. But I did not. so I put it in the oven under broil.

Uhhhhhh, apparently there's approximately a 1.3 second window for the browning of the meringue. The leisure you gain by not having to actually poke the cake is taken back from you ten-fold with the meringue.

Ok, this is better, now that I know I actually have to PAY ATTENTION.

So, here's the bottom of one of the cakes.

Layers of meringue, lemon cake, and then a smooth lemon pudding... Really, really fancy. I can see why they call them 'queen cakes'!

So, it's birthday season here and we've had SO MUCH CAKE.

 And we love looking back at pictures. Here's my fourth, named after both my brothers, being a "super baby"!

 Here is he being wrapped as a mummy when we studied the Egyptians. He was such a good sport about having his brains pulled out his nose.

An early reader...

Who loved to play in the mud.

 And here he is now, with the chess set he bought with his birthday money. He can already beat me and he just learned how to play on Tuesday. But that probably says more about my chess skills than his.

And there was our second baby's birthday. Here she is in her "boiled beet" phase. My oldest is wondering what sort of cat we've brought home for her.

Has always loved animals.... cats, dogs, chickens.

She always sewed her stuffed animals costumes. Here is a kitty playing Hamlet. (If found another in the bathtub in a diaphanous gown- Ophelia.) 

Here she is, posing with her "coming home" outfit, made for tiny babies.

She still sketches and doesn't go very many places without her satchel of art supplies but now a lot of work is done on her Wacom bamboo digital tablet, named "Mr. Wickham". (You have to keep a tight reign on him or he'll abscond with your work.)

She's learning to tell a story through art, not only words. 

 Sometimes the characters have a lot of power.

 Sometimes they're a little confused. (This is a self portrait/cartoon.LOL)

We'll share more birthday photos next week if we're not all dead by overdosing on cake. We're off to explore our city's fair, called Muddy Frogwater Country Days. Not much there but they do have a great salmon bake and corn roast. I'll share pictures if I remember to take a some before we eat!

So, wishing you all a happy end to summer! 

Mary Jane Hathaway facebook page! 

Virginia Carmichael facebook page!

My newest release!