Spring Time Lemon Yogurt Cake

So last night I was watching Cutthroat Kitchen, my favorite food network show, and they had to make their take on a lemon bar. If you watch that show, you would know that they have the ability to sabotage others to try and beat them. In the final round it will usually get pretty funny. I like it because it shows how good the chefs really are, not just how well they can cook. In this episode, there were two guys, one of whom had $20,000, and the other had $4,000. So obviously the guy with $20,000 was going to buy most of the sabotages because he had more money than the other so he could outbid him on the items. When they started making the lemon bars, Alton brought out a fake tree and replaced the loser's basket of items with the tree which had the ingredients inside little lemon juice bottles. This just got me wondering what other lemon cakes and things would be good for the 'entering March' time of year. I started to surf the web and I came across this recipe on Food Network, and it is for a lemon yogurt cake. I was, and am, really in the mood for lemon-y things at the moment, and so this recipe was perfect!

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt
1 1/3 cups sugar
3 extra-large eggs
3 tsp grated lemon zest (2 lemons)
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup pure vegetable oil
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350ºF
Grease an 8 1/2 by 4 1/4 by 2 1/2 inch loaf pan.
Line the bottom with parchment paper.
Grease and four the pan.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl.
In another bowl, whisk together the yogurt, 1 cup of sugar, the eggs, lemon zest, and vanilla.
Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
With a rubber spatula, fold the vegetable oil into the batter,making sure it's all incorporated.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake fro about 50 minutes, or until a cake tester placed in the center of the loaf comes clean.
While the cake is baking, cook the 1/3 cup lemon juice and remaining 1/3 cup sugar in a small pan until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is clear.
Set aside.
When the cake is done, allow it to cool in the pan for 10 minutes.
Carefully place on a baking rack over a sheet pan.
While the cake is still warm, pour the lemon-sugar mixture over the cake and allow it to soak in.
Cool.
For the glaze, combine the confectioner's sugar and lemon juice and pour over the cake.

Image Curtesy of Barefoot Contessa

Not British But Irish Soda Bread

Since last week I gave you guys a little bit of my Britishness, I figured a would give you another recipe from my heritage, so here goes. This one's Irish. So since I happen to be British, when I make British foods they have to be perfect because I am British and otherwise I would be disgracing my country by not making the food correctly. But, since this is technically IRISH soda bread, it doesn't have to be made entirely perfectly by me on my first couple of tries at making it... right? I don't know about you, but when I originally stumbled across this recipe I was all like "What in the world is soda bread?" and what I found is that soda bread is, by definition:

"bread leavened with baking soda." 

So since we now know that it is made from baking soda, I can give you the recipe and you can try out the recipe for yourself!

Ingredients:

4 to 4 1/2 cups flour

1 Tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
4 Tbsp butter
1 cup currants or raisins
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 3/4 cups buttermilk

Method:

Preheat the oven to 425ºF
Whisk together 4 cups of flour, the sugar, the salt, and the baking soda in a large mixing bowl.
Using your hands, work the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles breadcrumbs, then add in the currants or raisins.
Make a well in the center of the flour mixture. Add the beaten egg and the buttermilk to the well and mix in with a wooden spoon until the dough is too stiff to stir.
Dust your hands with a little flour, then gently knead the dough in the bowl just long enough to form a rough ball.
If the dough is too sticky, add a little more flour, and make sure not to over knead.
Put the dough on a lightly floured surface, and shape it into a round loaf.
The dough will be quite sticky, and flakey.
Work the dough just enough so that the flour is just moistened and the dough just barely comes together.
If over kneaded, the bread will be tough.
Transfer the dough to a large, lightly greased cast-iron skillet or baking sheet.
Using a serrated knife, sore the top of the dough
about an inch and and a half deep in an X-shape (This helps to get heat into the center of the dough while it cooks).

This is what it should look like in the pan before it goes into the oven
Image courtesy of Bay Area Bites

Put it in the oven and bake for about 30-35 minutes, or until the bread is golden brown and the bottom sounds hollow when tapped.
Remove the bread from the oven and allow to sit in the pan for 10-15 minutes, then remove from pan and place on a rack to cool briefly.
Serve it warm, room temperature, or toasted and buttered, but it is best eaten when it is warm and freshly baked.
Enjoy! :)

Image courtesy of Chinese Grandma

Beautifully Buttery Buttermilk Scones (And Also A lesson On How To Make A Proper Black Tea)

So as you may know if you have ever met me, I am British, which means that I have some habits that are different to y'all Americans. First, I drink tea. Lots of it. I have kind of stopped drinking tea ever since I went on a Paleo diet. As you know, a paleo diet cuts out milk, and in my tea, I drink English Breakfast Tea from Trader Joe's (my mother's favorite place to shop for food) and I boil the kettle (something my mother also loves to shop for), and then I pour the boiling water over the tea bag, and let it brew for maybe a couple minutes (maybe a longer or shorter time depending on how strong you like your tea). Once it has brewed, take the the tea bag out and pour in the milk. I usually put in enough for the tea to turn a beige-ish color. Anyway, now that y'all know how to make a proper black tea, How about I tell you how to make a scone. Hang on a sec, first let me tell you why I chose to write about scones. So my grandma came to stay with us a couple weeks ago, yes a couple weeks ago and yes, she is STILL HERE. Anyways, she came up to me and my older sister Charlotte last weekend and said "So it is mothers day on Sunday (that is not the American mother's day, the British one), so you guys should do something nice!" So then on mother's day, that Sunday, I didn't go skiing because I had to do a spanish project for Mrs. Aplanalp and when I went home my sister Charlotte was there because she drove home from the resort (she finally turned 16!) and so she wanted to make scones. Once they were done I ate one and thought that they were really good and decided to share the recipe with you.
So after you have now read this super long paragraph where I explained maybe too many things, here is your well deserved recipe by one of my favorite chefs, Delia Smith:

Ingredients (makes about 10 scones):

2-3 tablespoons of buttermilk (plus some extra for brushing the tops)
8 ounces (225 grams) of self raising flour, plus a little extra for dusting
A pinch of salt
3 ounces (75 grams) of butter at room temperature
1 1/2 ounces (40 grams) of golden caster sugar

Method:

Preheat the oven to 425ºFarenheit.
Sift the flour and salt into a bowl and then rub the butter gently into the mixture. Do this until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.
Next add the sugar.
Now, you will want to beat the egg and 2 tablespoons of the buttermilk together and begin to add this to the rest of the mixture using a palette knife.
Once it begins to come together, finish it off with your hands (it should be soft, but not sticky).
Once the dough has been formed into a ball, put it onto a lightly floured surface, and roll it out into a circle that is no less than 1 inch thick.
Cut out the scones by placing the cutter onto the dough and giving it a sharp tap, but make sure that you don't twist it and you just lift it up and push the dough out.
Once you can no longer cut another scone out, roll the remaining dough into a ball and roll it out so that it is 1 inch thick again.
Continue this process until it is no longer possible to cut out anymore scones.
Place the scones onto a baking tray and brush them lightly with the buttermilk and dust with  little bit of flour.
Bake them on the top shelf for 10-12 minutes, or until they are well risen and golden brown.
When you take them out of the oven, place them on a wire rack to cool.

Image courtesy of Tales From A Happy House