Debbie Quinn has a lifelong love of food and cooking, nurtured in her parents’ restaurants and in her own family’s kitchen. Every fortnight she shares her passion and expertise with our readers, bringing her best recipes, tips and tricks to the table.
We are coming into lemon season, so if you have a lemon tree in your garden, or if not, while lemons are fresh and abundant in the stores, plan to make your family and friends one of my all-time favourite desserts: lemon delicious.
Ingredients
1 rounded tablespoon butter (at room temperature)
¾ cup caster sugar
Grated rind of 2 lemons (or 3 if you love the lemony flavour as I do)
2 rounded tablespoons of self-raising flour
1 cup milk
2 eggs
3 tablespoons lemon juice
¼ tsp cream of tartar added to egg whites when beating
Method
Separate the whites from the yolks and set aside. Beat the butter and sugar to a cream, then add the lemon rind. Add half the sifted flour at a time, mixing well after each addition. Combine the egg yolks with the milk and fold in alternately with the lemon juice.
In a separate clean, dry bowl, whisk the egg whites with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form, adding the cream of tartar halfway through. Then, fold the beaten egg white mixture into the egg yolk lemon mixture.
Pour the combined mixture into a greased baking dish. Then, place the baking dish into another larger baking dish. Pour boiling water a third of the way up the side of the second dish to make a bain-marie. Bake in a moderate oven around 180°C for 40 minutes.
Deb’s tips
It’s important to use double dishes for this recipe. This is called a bain-marie, where the water surrounding the lemon gently cooks the dish, leaving a lovely lemon sauce at the base of the soft sponge. It is wonderful to have with whipped cream and ice-cream (Sara Lee French vanilla is our family favourite) on the side.
I used a 1.4-litre CorningWare casserole dish (about 20cm in diameter) for this recipe, which makes about 4 servings. When we have a family home, I double the recipe in a larger dish, and there are never any leftovers.
Be careful when getting the two dishes in and out of the oven with boiling water in the bottom dish.