recipe: lemon squares

I'm posting this with a disclaimer: making this recipe may ruin all other lemon squares for you. Ever. You know a recipe is going to be great when it comes from a Junior League cookbook. Okay, another disclaimer: this does not apply to anything molded out of jello that contains fruit or cottage cheese.  However, lemon squares? Those ladies have it perfected.

I grew up eating these lemon bars on special occasions. They are not overly time consuming but do require three steps and a long time chilling, so you cannot whip them up right before your luncheon. Luncheons being what I assume they originated for. The ladies of the Junior League of Cincinnati are still hawking cookbooks, but neither on sale is the one to originally contain these so I will share it with you. In fact, when I google searched "junior league of cincinnati cookbook lemon squares" they were sharing a recipe with no cream cheese icing! Cue pearl clutching. Enjoy the icing loaded version here.


 Frosted Lemon Squares
2 cups flour
1 cup butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar

4 whole eggs
Juice of two lemons
4 Tablespoons flour
2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup butter
3 cups powdered sugar
3 Tablespoons whipping cream
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
4 ounces cream cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Cream together the flour, butter and powdered sugar, either with a mixer or food processor. It will be quite crumbly. Press into ungreased 13 x 9 inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 17-20 minutes until a light golden color.

Beat the eggs. Add juice of two lemons, flour, sugar and salt. Mix together. Pour over baked crust. Bake for 22-25 minutes until golden brown. Let cool completely before icing, 2+ hours or overnight.

For the icing, cream together the butter and sugar in mixer or food processor. Add whipping cream and vanilla and mix. Add the cream cheese in pieces into this mixture. Spread icing on cooled lemon layer. Chill and then cut into small squares. Store in the refrigerator. Freezes well.

If nice presentation is desired, partially freeze before cutting as icing remains soft at room temperature. But if the Junior League ladies thought they looked fine, they look fine. And I can promise you, they taste great.

recipe: breaking out the ice cream machine

They say if you don't wear something for a whole year, you should throw it out (or, really, donate it) because you'll probably never wear it again. This is probably even more true in the kitchen where there are tons of fancy toys but far fewer necessary items. I am bad about following this rule.

Instead, after being secondhand gifted an ice cream maker at the begining of this year, I proceeded to leave it in the box all summer. Which in Richmond pretty much started in March. I then moved across the country, lugging the ice cream maker still in its box. At which point I swore I would use it.

[Color is a little off in this image]

Luckily, strawberries at 3 pints for $8 at the farmers market finally prompted me to make good on that promise. Uncharacteristically timid with my first solo-ice cream making experience*, I decided to use the recipe provided for me by Cuisinart. Recipe after the jump.

*Solo because in about second grade I assisted in cranking a hand-crank machine and in tenth grade we made ice cream in plastic bags in chemistry class. Neither experience instilled confidence in myself.

[Appropriate pink color]

plum good luck

After moving in, I discovered this tree in my backyard. A bit of luck since I arrived too late to plant anything for this season.




The plums are not especially sweet, so I'm still figuring out future recipes to try but they worked well in a plum galette, using the recipe I linked before that was written for plums but I had used for peaches. It was perfect to serve for Wine Wednesdays, a tradition started when I lived in DC and now continued with one of the original members also having just moved to the Bay as well.

What other plum recipes should I try?

[Poor kitchen lighting]

Original recipe from Honest Fare.

cake decorating class

My mother and sister are cake decorating masters while I'm lucky enough to have the patience to get the cake iced before I eat it. Luckily my sister taught me a few tricks and we made this cake. We used her key lime cake trick so decided to tint the icing light green.

make lemonade

My sister and I had the great idea to make these amazing chocolate cups from bakerella. They involve melting chocolate and then using balloons to form the cups. We had a minor issue.

The balloons kept popping.

I want to try again some day but instead of spending our afternoon frustrated, we decided to change direction. Want to see what we made?

recipe: little sister's lime cakes

I've been home the past week and enjoying time with my family. It's been fairly relaxing and besides a few meals and the Harry Potter premiere, I haven't left home. What I have been doing is eating lots of lots of these tiny lime cakes my sister made. The radio silence will continue while I head off to the beach for the next week. It's a darling little cottage with no internet or cell service. I will be bringing a stack of books instead.

Lime Cakes
1 box yellow cake mix and ingredients listed on box
1/3 cup key lime juice
whipped cream
raspberry sauce

Make cake according to box, substituting lime juice for 1/3 of the water called for. Bake sheet cake, cut out circles of cake. Top with whipped cream and a dallop of raspberry sauce.

the return of the candied bacon

At times I wonder if I should have named this blog "Bacon and other things I think are okay" considering the number of times bacon appears. My roommates tolerate my obsession (okay, they usually are glad to see the bacon) but one friend may actually challenge me for my title of Most Bacon Obessed.

Sadly, this friend has an exciting move across the country planned so I wanted to send her off appropriately. We met this morning for brunch at The Empress, a favorite of ours for the great gluten free food (for her allergies.) I brought her a present of Candied Bacon Fudge.

[Sweet and salty in one package]

Making the fudge is simple. For more details, check out this link at TheKitchen. But basically, make candied bacon, while it's cooking make the fudge. Pour half the fudge into a 8x8 pan, layer in the bacon then pour the rest of the fudge on. I used just over half of the bacon and my roommates got to eat the extra. Extra fudge is getting taken to a gather of lovely ladies tonight.

cupcake craze continues

While out grabbing lunch, I spotted a new food cart in downtown Richmond- Sweet Melissa's Cupcakes. An adorable girl (presumably Melissa) was working the cart, though she bashfully refused to be photographed. She's just opened shop though has sold out most days. I should have asked what hours she's around, but you can catch these cupcakes on E. Main at 12th across from Quiznos.


At $2.25, the cupcakes aren't cheap, but compare to most specialty cupcake shops. Melissa had four varieties on sale, and a list of seven on the menu she sent with me to distribute in my office (sorry, it's just two of us here!) A glass dome covers the dislay cupcakes while the ones for sale are individually boxed in plastic take-out containers. (Bonus: free tupperware!)

I got the classic chocolate cupcake, and it managed to avoid the mistakes of many cupcakeries (yes, I just coined that word.) The cake was moist and tasted homemade. The icing was soft and not overly sweet (chocolate buttercream.) If I had gotten more than one, I would have tried the 'Humingbird' cake with cream cheese frosting.

Sorry I didn't get a closeup of the treats, my battery died after the first picture. Anyone else in Richmond tried these yet? Thoughts?

salute to the white dog

I had never been to The White Dog, but when @RVAFoodie coordinated a Twitter meetup to support The White Dog in their last week of existance I knew I wanted to check it out. Jason (aka RVAFoodie) has made several great recommendations for me in the past and I knew this wouldn't disappoint. The White Dog did have a good casual vibe (minus one elderly man hitting on my baby sister) and I could see myself hanging out there with a friend or a group. We ended up with a free batch of catfish fingers that were quite tasty but I wasn't sad not to have discovered The White Dog earlier until my sister suggested we get dessert. Heaven!

[Bread pudding.]
The best I ever had.

[Chocolate ganache.]
As rich as the center of a truffle. With foamy whipped cream and hidden strawberry syrup.

Somehow despite the three of us at my table having eaten a full dinner and dessert prior to arrival then the catfish fingers, we managed to get through both desserts. We had been served an extra, unordered bread pudding but we gave it to Jason to return the favor.

The White Dog is open through Saturday so check it out!

cupcake craze

A lot of people are over the 'cupcake trend' and I admit that most cupcake places are overprices and oversugared. That doesn't stop my love of cupcakes, however. I've been craving cupcakes for months but didn't own cupcake pans. I was about to crack and buy some when they were on sale at the grocery store! Yes! So I bought regular and mini sized pans.

I knew exactly what I wanted to make. Chocolate cupcakes with raspberry jam filling and vanilla cream cheese frosting. Thanks to the amazing women at Big Girls Small Kitchen I found the perfect recipes for the cake and icing. I think I overbaked just a tad but the icing adds enough moisture back that it's okay. Stuffing the cupcakes was the trickiest part and while they didn't come out tasty, I think they will be eaten all up just fine. Any hints on filling cupcakes would be much appreciated. I just cut little slits in and shoved the jam down, but the more they cooled the harder that got. The jam mixed into the icing a bit on some of the 'cakes.


Photo quality's not so great due to my rush to eat one! I love the big cupcake with the jam hidden inside and the little baby cake next to it with a dab of jam sweetly on top.

ciao bella

How have I not written about Ciao Bella before? I'm glad I haven't because until recently I thought Ciao Bella was good just for delectable fruit sorbets. An independent on-campus eatery started stocking single serving cups of Ciao Bella Mango Sorbet. The ingredient list? Mango, Water, Sugar and Lemon Juice.

After graduation, I found Ciao Bella in a few grocery stores, mostly more high end like my boyfriend's coop in Berkeley where I picked up the Blood Orange Sorbet. I was in Target picking up a few holiday gifts and found a whole new world of Ciao Bella... Maple Ginger Snap Gelato.

The perfect winter treat, it does taste just like a soft ginger cookie (there is no snap, but I'm glad for the smooth, creamy texture.) The maple flavor is subtle and ties together the cream and sugar-ginger. Luckily, despite the seasonal feel, it is not one of the four 'seasonal' flavors for Ciao Bella. Though come summer, I know I'll be back to downing the Mango Sorbet!

grandma's recipe

I just got off the craziest couple of weeks of work that hopefully I'll have all year (yeah, right...) I was able to sneak in a visit to my grandmother and while there she gave me the recipe for her snickerdoodles. Since I'm off today to San Francisco to visit the bf, I decided to make them last night. An emergency trip to to Kroger's for shortening and cream of tarter and I was set. (My eggs were past the 'best by' date but looked fine and even after eating cookies last night, I'm fine!)

Mummum's Snickerdoodles
Mix together thoroughly
1 cup soft shortening
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla

Sift together and stir in
2 3/4 cups sifted flour
2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt

Chill dough. Roll into balls the size of small walnuts. Roll in mixture of 2 T sugar and 2 t cinnamon.
Place 2" apart on ungreased basking sheets.
Bake at 400, until lightly browned, but still soft (about 8-10 minutes)
Makes about 2.5 dozen cookies

I pretty much followed the recipe except I didn't chill the dough and used both 2T sugar AND 2T cinnamon in the topping, which turned out fine. The dough did get really crumbly at the end, so I think it should definitely be chilled.

Managed to burn the bottoms of one set, but still have plenty to take with me and leave with my roomie. The recipe also doubles easily.