How to Maximize the Flavor of Lemon Desserts
Most people identify with either a chocolate dessert or a fruit dessert. I am firmly in the second category, but to be more precise, I love dessert lemon: give me enough dessert lemon to pucker my lips and curl my face, or give me nothing at all.
Unfortunately, lemon desserts are most often disappointing. Where lemons shimmer with astringency, lemon meringue pie is cloyingly sweet; where the fruit is delicate floral and bitter, the cake is soapy and fragrant. All I want for a lemon dessert is one that tastes unmistakably my favorite ingredient of all time, and over the years I’ve developed several reliable tricks to do just that. If you’re tired of weak lemon sweets – or any weak citrus sweets – here are a few tricks that can help you.
Use more lemon
This may sound obvious, but for a stronger lemon flavor you need to use more lemon – just not in the way you think. The aromatic compounds that give lemons their distinctive aroma are distributed throughout each of its parts, including those you usually throw away . Using these pieces is the key to extraordinary results.
The first thing you need to do is face your fear of the core. In large quantities, the lemon pith is unpleasantly bitter, but contains aromatic compounds that are not present in the juice and rind. Adding even a small amount adds complexity and flavor. When making cake batter and frosting dough, continue zesting the lemons after you see white, or use a vegetable peeler to remove thicker strips of zest. For lemon curd and whatever looks like it – lemon bars, pie or pie fillings, ice cream bases, puddings – you can use the whole lemon . I like to cut the lemons into whole slices to expose the seeds, remove them, and then rub the rest with the other ingredients. If you are concerned about bitterness, remove the skin and core from half of the lemon first.
Add sugar
If you’re not quite ready to use the whole lemon, there is an even easier way to enhance the flavor of the lemon: add a large amount of zest to the sugar. When I make lemon desserts, the first thing I do – even before sorting the mize and taking out the butter to soften – mix the zest and sugar thoroughly and leave them in place until I finish cooking.
This step allows the sugar to absorb as much of the essential oils from the zest as possible, which distributes them evenly and enhances the flavor. Best of all, there is no wrong way to do it. A food processor or blender can do its job quickly, but I used the paddle attachment on my stationary mixer when I didn’t feel like pulling out the other appliance and fingers when I was too lazy. An important point is to give the mixture time to rest; an hour or so if you can save it, but even fifteen minutes counts.
For cakes, always work in layers.
Most lemon flavors are volatile, so a hot oven is their natural enemy. This is especially bad news for lemon tarts: you can fill them with zest and juice and end up with a sad, soft biscuit. Increasing the amount of these ingredients works, but only to a certain extent; acid interrupts gluten production, so too much lemon juice makes a cake with a tough sticky crumb. Not ideal. To maintain the brightness of a freshly squeezed lemon, you need to pour a layer of fresh juice and zest over the cake after baking. My favorite way to do this is to pierce a chilled (or mostly chilled) cake with toothpicks and pour more lemon juice over the top. Whatever toppings, frostings, or frostings you plan, adding pure juice to the cake itself will help it resist them.
Consider curd
Lemon curd is much more than just a delicious namaz. With a thick, oily custard texture and intense flavor, it lends a rich lemon flavor to everything from cake batter to buttercream. Some lemon biscuit recipes replace eggs entirely with a healthy serving of lemon curd. Making a separate custard is a bit extravagant, but I think it’s worth it. Even if you don’t whisk it directly into the batter, lemon curd will add the perfect touch to a puff pie – and you can microwave it as well .
Bring the chemicals
Lemon desserts need the perfect balance between sweet and tart, and sometimes the easiest way to get past that line is with a little chemical aid . Powdered citric acid is a particularly useful weapon against shitty lemon desserts. Citric acid makes lemon juice sour, so using it in powder form slightly increases the astringency of the lemon without adding extra liquid. It is sometimes sold as “sour salt” in the spice section of supermarkets, but you can also order it in bulk online for a fairly reasonable price. If you like the atmosphere of a packaged cake, there is nothing wrong with a little lemon extract; I especially like it in the cream cheese frosting.
Finally, don’t underestimate the power of my favorite chemical of all time: salt . Acid and salt reinforce each other, so if your lemon curd doesn’t taste good, chances are it’s not sugar or acid, but salt. Add an extra pinch here or there, or just use salted butter ; it will balance everything.