Friday, July 7, 2023

When life gives you lemons....

 Bake a lemon loaf cake. 

If you really want to thumb your nose at life, throw in some blueberries and almonds!


As retirees who are faithful to following the American dream, we live in a small lot, HOA controlled development with folks that cut your grass every week and refuse to let you wash your car on the driveway.

It hasn't always been that way though. When I was still working for a living and before my mitral valve began leaking oil like a 1953 Dodge Coronet oil pan seal, we lived in a house surrounded by a large piece of property that required a big green riding lawnmower and four hours lawn scaping a week to keep it under control. Since space was no problem, I planted lots of blueberry bushes so a pair of Mockingbirds who lived in a nearby tree would have all the blueberries they could eat during the late spring and early summer. 


By the way, if you went to the Kroger in Clinton last weekend, you might have noticed the mockingbird who snuck into the store and would swoop down from the rafters into the produce area every minute or so to steal a bite out of a plump white grape in a display there. He probably thought he was in the promised land, where someone had placed a buffet for his personal use. It didn't bother me, but I wonder what the produce manager did, because I think it is against the law to kill a mockingbird. At least that is what Mom said right after Dad gave me my first BB gun.

If my old guy memory is still working, our state legislature (Should that be capitalized? Does anyone care?) yielded to the political lobbying pressure of a group of fourth graders from Mannsdale Elementary School in Madison a few weeks back and voted to declare the Blueberry the official State Fruit of Mississippi. 

Wait! Don't turn away from me now. I got all swimmy-headed and fell into a political matter rabbit hole, when I try to follow a personal policy of avoiding political discussions.

Let's get back to blueberries and lemon cake.

One of the nicest things about blueberries is that one or more of the many varieties of blueberries will grow almost anywhere in the good old USA. One of the other nice things is that blueberry bushes usually make enough fruit for both the birds and you, provided you go outside to pick the ripe fruit early enough each day to beat the birds to the bush. If you do, you'll have some of the delicious berries to enjoy and perhaps even enough to freeze for later use in pies, cakes and over your morning bowl of cornflakes. 


 Note: Blueberries do not come with sugar. In this photo, I had dusted them with sugar for use in another recipe, but I needed a photo and this was the only one I could find in my photo archive.

This past week, I found myself with a pint of fresh blueberries (thanks to a sister from Starkville who is smart enough to have my BIL put a net over their bushes) and some lemons, so I decided to enjoy some lemon cake with my blueberries. The Almonds were a last-minute thought, leading to an unnecessary addition to the recipe.

The results of my baking are here:


Here is how I made this tasty cake.

Ingredients:

2 Lemons, zested
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup Extra Virgin Olive oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1/2 cup plain Greek Yogurt
3 or 4 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups AP flour or cake flour
1 1/2 cups Blueberries
2 Tablespoons sugar for top of cake loaf
1/4 cup sliced almonds, for top of cake loaf. If I baked one today, I would not add them


 

Directions:

Zest 2 lemons into 1 cup of sugar. Mix until the zest is well coated with sugar.





Add half a cup of olive oil and 1 teaspoon of vanilla. Mix well.



Add two eggs, one at a time, mixing the first egg in well before adding the second and mixing it in well.






Add half a cup of plain Greek yogurt and 3 or 4 Tablespoons Lemon Juice. Mix well.




Add 2 teaspoons baking powder and a half teaspoon of salt. Mix well.


Add one and a half cups of AP or Cake flour, mix until just incorporated, then stir in 1 cup blueberries. Mix well by hand so you don't destroy the berries.




Pour the batter into a parchment lined loaf pan. The parchment paper keeps the cake from sticking to the pan and makes it easy to remove the loaf after baking.




Add a half cup of blueberries on top of the batter then 2 Tablespoons sliced almonds and 2 Tablespoons of sugar.




Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour then allow to cool for 20 minutes before removing from pan.


We enjoyed this loaf cake for several days. The white stuff is whipped cream from a can. 







I will end this with a useless bit of information. When they aren't on the back of the recliner sleeping, our cats love whipped cream from a can.



Thanks for looking at my post.

God bless you.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love blueberries and lemons in various combinations! I get the yogurt instead of sour cream but not sure about olive oil? Why not vegetable oil or shortening that has a less distinct flavor?

Anonymous said...

I love lemon and blueberry pound cake, too. The last hard freeze in March wiped out our blueberry, persimmon and peach blossoms so no fruit this year. But the strawberries and wild blackberries did really well so I've got about 8 gallons of each kind in the freezer to make jellies and jams, ice cream, fruit buckles and other things.

Anonymous said...

This is my jam! Lemon Blueberry desserts are the best!

Anonymous said...

I'm not reading any more of his articles. I have gained 5 pounds, reading up till now.

Stuff About ZeroBear PolyBear said...

10:54

I'm not sure about using extra virgin olive oil either. A few details to consider. Shortening gives a slightly crisper texture than either Olive or Canola and would be noticeable, especially in the crust.

The differences in flavor between EVO and canola are sight, but definitely there, leading to the importance of personal opinion. Both Canola and Olive oils are monosaturated oils, which are considered better for you than hydrogenated fat, since they help to lower the LDL which is considered the "bad" cholesterol. The flavor of EVO might be preferred by some bakers and if it is, then they will almost always use it in place of Canola.

I am saying too much. I should have stuck with I don't know. The two oils are 100% interchangeable and using shortening is good too, especially if you like a little more crispness in the crust. I think the three are fully interchangeable with no recipe modifications required.

Anonymous said...

I respected this recipe until I saw the cats.

Anonymous said...

what happens when life gives you turbids? I'll take lemons any day

Steve said...

ZPB. If you toss your blueberries in a little flour before adding them to your batter they won’t sink to the bottom during baking.

Anonymous said...

Is the kitty in the top photo a bobcat? I don't see a tail.

Stuff About ZeroBear PolyBear said...

6:45

Her name is Bit and she is a Manx. We found her in the center of a busy street off of Lakeland drive in Jackson almost two years ago. When I saw her cowering in the traffic, I panic stopped and got out, since she was still moving. She was less than a handfull, tiny and still should have been with her mother.

I thought she had been hit, but she was OK, just scared. The name comes from the fact she was "just a little bit of cat" when I got out in traffic and rescued her. The wife took her as I drove home, and bonded, so she is very much a "Momma's Cat".

The other girl is "Misty" because it was raining the day we got her. We found Bit two days after getting Misty.

Do you know what they call two cats? ... A starter kit for becoming a Cat Lady.

6:45 said...

Z-Bear - I guess I'm a cat lady, too. We have two, now old, strays. One is a tuxedo cat named Domino that I found living alone along the big creek below our house when she was a kitten. The other is a calico cat like yours that I found barely alive in a pasture after, we think, one of our donkeys kicked her in the face and broke her nose. She snores and makes a lot of weird breathing noises so we named her Snuffles.

One of our donkeys is a stray, too. A sheriff's deputy knocked on our door in the middle of a night, asking if he could put a donkey in one of our pastures after it was found wandering on the road. We never found out who owned the donkey and the sheriff's department finally asked if we would just keep her. So we did.

Anonymous said...

Love the kitty pics almost more than the fab dessert pics!

-Proud (aspiring) crazy cat lady


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