Super Duper Moist Lemon Cake

 

Australia Day, an excellent day for a picnic at a friend's property where we sit and gaze at the rolling hills and listen to the wind. A place where kids run across fields, climb fallen blackwoods, or go wading in the creek. A place where we stop being city dwellers just for a moment, and instead rest on the land which supports us and holds us and whispers secrets beyond hearing. If only we knew how to listen, we might just understand what it has to say.

I have just read Strandloper by Alan Garner, which tells the story of escaped convict, William Buckley. Buckley lived for thirty years with a local indigenous tribe, who recognised in him their deceased elder, Murrungurk. In Garner's version, having been through local initiation rites in England before his deportation, Buckley is initiated into the tribe and discovers deep resonances; the Dreaming is universal. Through the story, Garner suggests that all healthy people are able to embody the sacred in their every action, and recognise the spirituality of the land and their infinite dependence on it; and he suggests that ruptures in the Dreaming caused by the violence of colonialism must be answered by a new Dreaming, yet to unfold. As to how it will, with the loss of the ancestors who teach the art of listening, well, that is a mystery. Perhaps Strandloper is a good place to start.

It's a beautiful, difficult, thought provoking and sad book; I came away with a deep sense of loss both for the indigenous tribes which were ripped apart by colonialism, and for my own lack of a traditional heritage. A sense of connection with the land and knowledge of the rituals associated with it have been lost to so many of us thanks to generations of successive displacement; but loving and paying attention to one particular place over many years must be a beginning point for a new relationship with the land. And for my family, our particular place is our friend's property. 'This,' said my three year old, 'is my favourite super duper place' , and that just about sums it up for me.

 

On Thursday, as I quietly mused about place and belonging, seven of us stood silent in the derelict old shack, peeking through holes in the windows and walls and watching a wedge tailed eagle circle lower and lower as it investigated the remains of a dead wallaby. Finding it rather too far gone, it soared upwards on a thermal and disappeared; and we, praying that the wind would soon change and the wallaby no longer haunt us, unpacked our lunch.

Reflection always makes me hungry; and, like food for reflective thought, food for the block needs to be sturdy, as the only access is up a severely rutted old logging track. Having just scored a big bag of lemons from a neighbour, I brought a heavy lemon cake. It may not be the most ecologically responsible food nor is it particularly connected with the land, but to this European born on the other side of the world from her ancestors, it is gently restorative, nevertheless.

Super Duper Moist Lemon Cake - 200g unsalted butter at room temperature - 200g + 4 tbs granulated coconut palm sugar - 180g ground almonds ½ tsp baking powder - 2 large lemons - 4 eggs Preheat the oven to 160°. Position an oven rack in the centre of the oven. Line a loaf tin with baking paper, or butter it well. Slice one of the lemons crosswise into circles. Place it in a small saucepan with 2 tbs of the sugar and 4 tbs water. Bring it to a gentle simmer, and let it bubble away for 5 to 7 minutes, shaking from time to time, until the liquid has almost disappeared and the lemon becomes sticky. Do not let it burn! Take it off the heat and leave to cool. Whisk together the ground almonds and the baking powder. Place the butter and 200g of the sugar into a mixmaster and beat until they are fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, until all is combined. Zest one of the lemons and chop the zest finely (or use the tiny holes on a grater). Add the zest to the mixture and beat once more. Remove the bowl from the mixer. Gently fold in the ground almonds and baking powder, scraping from the bottom to keep the mixture as light as possible. Place it into the prepared loaf tin. Arrange the lemon slices along the top of the cake, and drizzle any lightly toffee'd liquids over them. Slip into the oven, and bake for 50 minutes or until a knife slips out clean. While the cake is in the oven, place the juice of the zested lemon and the last 2 tbs of sugar into the same saucepan as was used to cook the lemon slices. Warm very slightly, just until the sugar has dissolved. When the cake is done, take it out of the oven and poke it with a toothpick left right and centre. Now spoon the lemon and sugar mixture over the cake, letting each spoonful be absorbed before adding the next one. Leave the cake to cool in its tin. Delicious on its own, or with an artery-blocking splodge of double cream. Adapted from a recipe in The Kitchen Diaries by Nigel Slater. (Local: lemons, eggs. Mysterious provenance: ground almonds. Not so local: baking powder. From Indonesia, but organic, delicious, full of healthy minerals, and far more sustainable than cane sugar: coconut palm sugar.)

Drink your garden

Every sustainability expert says to eat your garden, but on wintry days, I mostly drink it. As much as we're all supposed to consume endless glasses of water, I can't stand that greasy cold lump sitting sluggishly in my stomach, so I turn to herbal teas. Yet most commercial preparations taste like stale grass; and anyway, the packaging gets me down. It's an exercise in how not to be sustainable: first, strip off the plastic wrap, then open the cardboard box, then unwrap the paper cover and only then will you get to the tea – which is in a bag. How ridiculous.

But a while ago I worked out that I can drink my garden. Food miles: zero. Packaging: nil. Even better, unlike even the fanciest dried herbal teas, my garden really does taste fresh. When I want a hot caffeine-free drink, I put on the kettle and head outside with a pair of scissors; it's ready in minutes.

Here are my four favourite infusions. All are very simple, and none have more than one ingredient. Think of them not so much as recipes as reminders that even in the depths of winter, good things grow.

Cumquat Infusion

The problem with cumquats is that their skins are delicious and their insides, horrid. One way to get around this is to ignore the insides altogether. This is our favourite after-dinner drink: it's delicious, soothing, and aids digestion.

Take five or six whole cumquats and place them in a pot. (Do not prick them, as you want to extract the flavour from the oils in the skin, not the from the bitter insides.) Cover them with boiling water and leave to infuse for five or six minutes, then pour.

Pineapple Sage Tisane

Pineapple sage is a delightful herb. It has the grace to flower in the winter, when things are bleak, and sends great sprays of hot pink flowers into the air. The flowers, when sucked, have a small drop of sweet nectar which children (and I) love; my daughters all spend long minutes at the bush plucking and sucking, sucking and plucking, savouring the experience of drinking flowers as much as the rush of nectar. Even the leaves are highly scented, and they make a refreshing tisane. The drink is fragrant with a light, sweet flavour and the faint aroma of pineapple; this is not a savoury sage.

Take a small stem of leaves, about 15cm long; if there are flowers attached, so much the better. Shake it well to dislodge any insects from the flowers, then pop the stem into a pot and cover with boiling water. Leave it to draw for five minutes. If there are flowers in the pot and your pot is glass, you can watch them leach colour, a quietly meditative activity. Serve.

Canary Tea

Canarino tea is served in Florence; canarino means 'canary', and when you make this tea you will see why it has this name. The cynical among us might call it something else – wee tea comes to mind – but the yellow really is so bright, so clear, and so strongly reminiscent of canaries, that the cynics can go make themselves a cup of coffee and keep their mouths shut for once. This lovely idea comes from Lora Zarubin's luxurious book I am Almost Always Hungry.

Zarubin's book is a great favourite in our household for its oyster shooters; and yet, of course, I don't follow even that recipe. Zarubin recommends infusing vodka with ginger, then making oyster shooters from the flavoured vodka. We, however, have a passion for cucumber vodka – it's so crisp! and so cold! – so we infuse our vodka thus; and several years ago, at my husband's 40^th birthday party, we threw a party featuring an outrageous number of cucumber oyster shooters. Lucky guests finished off with a highly alcoholic slice of cucumber, and I was followed around the kitchen by desperate adults begging for more vegetables. It was a memorable event. Or unable to be remembered, depending, of course, on how many oysters one consumed.

Canary tea is a whole different kettle of fish. Unlike vodka shooters, it won't give you a headache the next day, and won't be talked about years later. In fact, it is non-alcoholic, caffeine free, organic, vegan, non-GMO and fair trade: my across-the-street neighbour gives me lemons and we give her eggs, which seems a fair enough trade to me!

Using a veggie peeler, peel away the skins of two lemons, taking as little pith as possible. Place the peel into a teapot, cover it with boiling water, and let it steep for five minutes. Serve immediately. You can add herbs if you like, but I enjoy the pure taste of lemon.

(Many people drink lemon juice in hot water these days. My dentist goes pale when I say such things: the lemon juice strips tooth enamel. This infusion has a gentler flavour and lacks the acidity of lemon juice; it's a lovely and less damaging alternative.)

Rosemary Tisane

Many years ago, when my mother was slowly dying and I was frantic, my husband and I went to a conference. We wound up in a fancy hotel, and I felt trapped by the plane ride, the hotel, the city; I just wanted to go home. I couldn't eat or rest, so we went for a walk while I raged and wept – and then we came across a godsend: great swathes of rosemary in an urban planting scheme. Long tendrils sprawled out of planter boxes, and the air was filled with its healing scent. I picked several long branches and took them back to the hotel. There I switched on the kettle, laid the sprigs in a basin, poured boiling water over them and inhaled. Finally, I relaxed; finally I felt hungry. We left the rosemary to steep while we went out for dinner at last. When we came back, the room smelled safe and I was, just for a little while, whole again.

I have always found rosemary to be a great healing herb when it comes to matters of the heart; more practically, it aids digestion after a heavy meal. Take a good sprig of fresh rosemary, maybe 15cm long, and place it in the pot; you will, of course, need to snip it into a few pieces to fit. Cover with boiling water and leave to infuse for five minutes, then serve.

There are many other herbs you can drink with more or less success – for example, lemon verbena is delicious, while lemon balm tastes soapy – but always check an herbal to ensure that it is safe to drink. The Complete Book of Herbs and Herb Gardening, while not exhaustive, is fairly comprehensive. My next project is to plant out Greek Mountain Tea, also known as ironwort; it is said that a cup a day will chase away all ills and with three sicky snotty kids in the house who mostly give their ills to me, I could use any sort of immune boost I can find! With any luck – that is, if the chickens don't escape and dig it up – I'll be able to report back in the spring.

No teapots were harmed during the writing of this post.

Lemon Suck

Lately I happened to mention to someone that we never get enough lemons. As if to mock me, three unrelated people each presented us with a bagful last week, and we were faced with the delightful prospect of too many.

Given how hard it is to drink water in winter, we whipped up a fresh batch of lemon cordial to help the water slip down. And then we turned our attention to Lemon Suck.

Lemon Suck –what a wonderful name – is nothing more than a runny marmalade mixed with walnuts. Americans use it to flavour and sweeten their tea (they suck the remains, hence the name); we use it heaped on scones, or for a sweet-sour spoon treat in the mid-afternoon, or as a tangled garnish over lemony desserts. However you use it, it's delicious.

I begin with a Deborah Madison recipe, but as we don't use it in tea, I reduce the water to make it slightly less dribbly; and I quadruple the walnuts because I love the way they become almost candied and infused with lemon.

Lemon Suck - 1 dozen organic unwaxed lemons, washed - 3 cups sugar - 1 cup water - 1 cup shelled walnuts Slice the lemons into thin rounds, discarding the ends. Place the water and sugar into a heavy based pan and bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Gently lower the lemons into the pan – they will not be completely covered by the water, but as they soften they will submerge – and turn down the heat. Cook gently, moving the slices around from time to time, for 1 to 1½ hours, or until the lemons turn golden and the pith, opaque. Add the walnuts, stir gently to combine, and cook for another 5 minutes. Pour into sterilized jars. Store in a cool dark place. Adapted from a recipe by Deborah Madison in The Savory Way. (Local: lemons, walnuts. Not local: sugar.)

Lemon Cordial

My grandmother used to give us mildly sweet drinks. She served lemon barley and other cordials in thin little glasses with frosted patterns and gilt lips. I would empty my glass in about two seconds flat, then sit there politely as she twittered and fussed, running my fingers over the slightly raised frosting.

A few weeks ago, at the morning tea after her funeral, the crematorium happened to serve lemon barley along with the tea and coffee and I was taken right back.

Now I'm home again, I'll make my own. My neighbour's tree is burgeoning with lemons, and this cordial is easy to make. Even better, it's chemical-free, very refreshing, and keeps in the fridge for weeks.

Lemon Cordial - about 15 lemons - 350 g caster sugar Squeeze the lemons and pour the juice into a saucepan. Strain it if you want, but I leave the pulp; I like a little texture. Add the caster sugar, and heat until simmering. Stir to dissolve the sugar. Simmer gently for 5 minutes, then pour into clean glass bottles. Leave to cool, and refrigerate. To serve, pour cordial into a glass, then top up with tap water or plain mineral water. One part cordial to four parts water tastes about right. (Local: lemons. Not local: sugar.)

Lemon Delicious

I don't particularly remember eating lemon delicious at my grandmother's house, and yet I associate it with her. My grandmother died just over a month ago; my grandfather, her husband, is in palliative care. So I am in a cooking frenzy and right now I want something sharp like grief, but soothingly old-fashioned too.

Lemon Delicious fits the bill. This classic dessert separates into layers in the oven: a light sponge on top, and a rich yellow sauce underneath. It's sharp with the tang of lemon, yet smooth and comforting to eat. It's just the thing for dessert tonight; or, as my grandparents would say, 'sweets'.

Lemon Delicious - 3 eggs, separated - ½ cup sugar - 1 cup milk - 1 tbs self-raising flour - 1 lemon, zested and juiced (you want about ½ cup juice) - a wee pinch of salt Butter a 1 litre ovenproof dish. Preheat the oven to 180. Add the sugar and the lemon zest to the egg yolks and beat with an electric mixer until pale and thick. Add the milk, tablespoon by tablespoon, mixing well after each addition. Sift in the flour and salt, add the lemon juice, and mix well. Wash the beaters*, then beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture using a spatula, scraping up mixture from the bottom and folding it in. Treat it gently – do not beat it or it will deflate. It will look slightly curdled, but that's fine. Scrape into the baking dish. Stand the dish in a larger dish or tray, and add enough boiling water to the larger dish to come halfway up the sides of the smaller dish. Bake in moderate oven for 45 minutes or until firm to touch. It's rather nice with a bit of cream. Serves 3 sad or greedy people, or 4 more civilized people. *You need clean beaters or the egg whites won't stiffen. Adapted from the good old Australian Women's Weekly Basic Cookbook. (Local: lemon, milk. Not local: flour, sugar, salt.)

Lemon Butter

My mother had mixed feelings about lemon butter. She had been told that undercooked eggs were unhealthy and dangerous, probably crawling with microbes – and yet she loved it. So she'd never make the stuff and 'tsk' when she saw it at the church fete, then buy it anyway and slather it on her crumpets. In the same way, she'd let us lick out a cake bowl, all the while fretting aloud that we'd come down with listeria or salmonella or some other nasty little bug from raw egg. We never did.

Me, I'm not worried. We get eggs fresh from a farm, and my daughters and I always make sure there's enough cake batter left to get a good scrape each with the spatula. And I even make my own lemon butter.

I tend to make it at night when the house is quiet. Although it's quick and easy, it requires vigilance; and it brings on a precious meditative state which I prefer not to have interrupted by short people.

If you're making a single quantity and intend to eat it quick, wash your jars in very hot soapy water, then pop them in a cool oven to dry completely before filling with lemon butter. That's what I did until I had babies and you can too – just don't blame me if you get food poisoning. These days, however, I sterilize my jam jars. I have a baby bottle steam sterilizer needing a new job, and it fits four jam jars rather nicely. It's the one advantage I know of having bottle-fed babies!

Lemon butter keeps for a month or two in a cool place. Once the jar is opened, store it in the fridge.

Lemon Butter - 2 large juicy lemons, or 3 not so juicy lemons - 100g unsalted butter - 175g sugar, and it must be refined white sugar; brown sugar will turn a delicate trembling little butter into an unattractive brown sludge - 3 eggs, lightly beaten Grate the zest from the lemons, or zest the lemons then chop the ribbons into tiny segments. Juice the lemons. Place the zest and the juice into a heavy-based saucepan with the butter and sugar. Heat gently, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Take off the heat and leave to cool a little. Add the eggs through a strainer, and mix to incorporate. Place back onto a gentle heat and stir constantly until the mixture has thickened. You must not let it boil, or it will curdle and separate. The moment it looks velvety, take it off the heat, and pour into hot jars. This makes enough for two medium jars: one for you, and one for the neighbour who gave you the lemons. At least, that's how it works in our house. Spread it on toast or crumpets, or use it to make little lemon tarts. A traditional recipe; I use the proportions from The Cook's Companion by Stephanie Alexander. (Local: lemons, eggs. Non-local: butter, sugar.)