Meyer Lemon Creme Brulee w. Raspberries & Blueberries

I was recently gifted a bounty of gorgeous meyer lemons from LA baking maven and lover of all things bundt Mary (aka The Food Librarian). The beautiful fruit came right off of trees in the backyard of Mary's dad --- Thank you Mary and Poppa Food Librarian!!! I knew I couldn't use all of this precious fruit right away, so I prepared most of them for the freezer.

I zested,

halved the zested lemons,

then did some serious juice squeezing.

I used snack size zip top bags to store the zest (the zest of 3 lemons in each bag),

and portioned the juice into 1/2 cup packages in sandwich bags. After marking the bags with a sharpie, they go into a large freezer bag and into the deep freeze. Now, I can enjoy fresh meyer lemon juice any time of the year!

I did set aside a handful of fruit for some immediate meyer lemon gratification. I've been reading through Karen DeMasco's book, The Craft of Baking, and her recipe for Lemon Raspberry Creme Brulee was calling my name.

The recipe calls for steeping the cream with lemon zest, cooling the mixture in an ice bath, adding lemon juice and salt, then resting the mixture overnight in the fridge.

Instead of tempering the eggs with the hot cream mixture (as I'm accustomed to), the eggs are whisked in to the cold lemon infused cream. The mixture is strained, and ready for the ramekins.

A handful of raspberries are scattered in each ramekin (I also added a few blueberries), and the custard mixture is poured into the prepared dishes.

These babies are ready for the oven.

Once the custard is set, it is chilled in the fridge overnight. Now, my favorite part - the brulee! After sprinkling some sugar on top,

the top is torched to melt the sugar and to create that scrumptious crunchy top.

My favorite part of this dessert is cracking the crunchy top, which yields to the creamy goodness underneath.

The custard delivers a nice refreshing tang from the meyer lemon, and has a wonderfully soft texture, which is a great contrast to the crunchy sugar top. The berries are soft and jammy, and provides a wonderful complement to the lemon flavor.

If you're a lover of all things lemon, I highly recommend that you take this recipe for a spin!

Meyer Lemon Creme Brulee w. Raspberries & Blueberries

adapted from The Craft of Baking by Karen DeMasco

Serves 6

2 C. heavy cream

1/4 c. plus 2 tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

finely grated zest of 4 meyer lemons

1/2 c. strained fresh meyer lemon juice

1/2 tsp kosher salt

4 large egg yolks

1 c. raspberries

1 c. blueberries

additional sugar

Prepare an ice bath in a large bowl.

In a medium saucepan, bring the cream, sugar, vanilla and meyer lemon zest just to a boil. Remove the pan from the heat and pour the mixture ino a medium bowl. Set the bowl into the ice bath and stir until the mixture has cooled. Once cooled, removed the bowl from the ice bath, and whisk in the lemon juice and salt. Cover, and refrigerate overnight.

In a large bowl, whisk the egg yolks. Pour about one third of the chilled cream mixture into the yolks, and whisk together well. Add the remaining cream mixture and whisk to combine. Strain the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl.

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat oven to 300F.

Place 6 ramekins in 9x13x2 baking pan. scatter the raspberries and blueberries in a single layer in each ramekin. Divide the custard mixture among the ramekins. Place the prepared baking pan in the oven, and carefully pour enough hot water into the pan to come halfway up the ramekins. Be careful not to dilute the custard mixture with the hot water.

Bake in the water bath for 30 minutes, or until just set.

Let the custards cool to room temperature, then chill until they are ready to be served.

Just before serving, sprinkle sugar evenly over the tops of each custad and caramelize with a torch or under a broiler. Serve immediately.

Tartest Meyer Lemon Tart (TWD)

After the overload of rich chocolate recipes last month, this week's TWD recipe for Tartest Lemon Tart was a refreshing change of pace. I love all things that are intensely sweet & tart (I'm a total Sour Patch Kid junkie), and I was totally looking forward to making this. What is so unique and intruiging about this recipe is the use of whole lemons, peel and all.

I couldn't resist making individual tartlettes. Here are my notes and adjustments (for the full recipe please visit Babette Feasts):

- made a full recipe of shortbread nut crust, using Trader Joe's Almond Meal, and I yielded four 4" tartlettes and four 3" tartlettes.

- I made a half recipe of the lemon filling and used 1 whole meyer lemon (it's the end of their season ---*sigh*). This yielded the perfect amount of filling for the four 4" tartlettes.

I loved how the filling slightly overflowed and formed a brown slightly crispy/chewy crust around the edge. For me, that was the tastiest part of this tart. :)


Creme fraiche would have been a perfect partner to this tart. As I didn't have any handy, I whipped up a mixture of heavy cream, sour cream and powdered sugar, and it worked wonderfully. A handful of tart blackberries completed this beauty of a dessert. So, was this tart ...too tart? Absolutely not! As I used meyer lemons, the tartness was probably downplayed. Still, this tart delivered a wonderfully fresh and bright lemon flavor with just the right amount of sweetness to prevent your mouth from puckering. The buttery, crunchy crust played perfectly with the jammy filling.
Feeling a little adventurous, I eyed a 1/2 pink grapefruit sitting on the counter that was leftover from breakfast .... hmmm...how about a grapefruit tart? I used this half and made a half batch of the filling, which was way more than enough for the three remaining tart shells. Eyeballing what I had left, the half batch would have yielded enough filling for eight 3" tartlettes. The tarts baked beautifully with a gorgeous orange/pink hue, but the taste was a whole different story...way too bitter! I should have removed the pith. Oh well, you live and learn. I still love this idea of a grapefruit tart, so I'm doing to attempt this again soon, sans the white pith. Stay tuned and I'll tell you how it turns out in a future post.
Thank you Babette of Babette Feasts selecting this wonderful recipe! For more beautiful tarts, make sure to explore the TWD blogroll.

Meyer Lemon Sherbet (TWD)

There was quite a bit of chatter among the Tuesdays With Dorie bakers regarding this week's recipe, Lemon Cup Custard. Some of the bakers commented that this custard tasted eggy and had a flan-like texure, and as a result, a lot of folks clearly expressed their love or hate of this type of dessert.

When it comes to dessert, I'm game for anything, except for anything flan-like. The texture is just not my cup of tea. So, where does that leave me this week?

Instead of sitting out this week, I wanted to take the ingredients called for in this recipe and create something that I would enjoy (hopefully the TWD gods won't strike me down for this). With a just a couple of tweaks (no eggs, no lemon extract, add lemon juice), I came up with this recipe for meyer lemon sherbet.

The hubby and I had the sherbet with fresh strawberries, all we could say was WOW! The meyer lemons imparted a nice citrusy/floral flavor and we loved the icy/creamy texture of the sherbet. One adjustment that I would make the next time is straining the mixture before freezing (the pieces of zest didn't do it for me texturally); otherwise, I wouldn't change a thing.
Check out how the others fared with the Lemon Cup Custard at the TWD blogroll! For the unadulterated version of this recipe, please visit our hostess for the week, Bridget of The Way The Cookie Crumbles.

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Meyer Lemon Sherbet

makes approx 1 pint

2 C whole milk

1/2 C sugar
zest of 2 meyer lemons

1/2 C meyer lemon juice (approx 2-3 lemons)

In a medium saucepan, mix 1 C of milk with the sugar and zest. Heat until the sugar dissolves, stirring frequently.

Remove from the heat and add the remaining 1 C of milk. Transfer the mixture to a container and thoroughly chill in the fridge.

Once chilled, stir in the lemon juice into the milk mixture. Freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Tall & Creamy Meyer Lemon Cheesecake (TWD)

Sorry everyone...a WAY late post for last week's Tuesday With Dorie selection, Tall and Creamy Cheesecake. This is a FABULOUS recipe, and it's helped me overcome my fear of baking cheesecakes. Okay, confession--- I've never successfully baked a respectable cheesecake until I tried Dorie's recipe here. Not only does the cheesecake taste delicious, the recipe is foolproof as I get great results every time I make it.


I opted for a meyer lemon version, taking advantage of the great looking meyer lemons at the farmers market. I used a 7" springform pan and made half of the filling recipe. I still made a full recipe for the graham crust, as I love a thicker crust. Unlike your typical heavy and dense cheesecake, this cheesecake is light and fluffy. I loved the subtle citrus flavor of the meyer lemon, and raspberries were a perfect accompaniament.

Thank you Anne Strawberry for this delicious selection! If you'd like to try your hand at this cheesecake (which I highly recommend), you can find the recipe at Anne's blog or at Serious Eats.