upside down lemon, maple and vanilla pudding
I was given a copy of OTK Shelf Love for Christmas and I'm slowly making my way through the recipes in the book. My friend Amanda made the upside down lemon, vanilla and maple pudding and told me how tasty it was, so I decided to give it a go.
I had to play with the proportions a little and because it's a pain lining a square tin I decided to line the base of the cake with baking paper instead of the whole tin. Always listen to Ottolenghi because the maple syrup welded the lemon slices to the tin so in retrospect, just follow the instructions.
Here's the recipe for you which makes a 7 inch (17cm) square cake. For all my recipes I use a 250 ml cup, a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60 g eggs. My oven is a conventional oven so if you have a fan-forced oven you may need to reduce the temperature by 20°C.
Upside down lemon, vanilla and maple pudding inspired by a recipe from OTK Shelf Love
1 medium lemon
1/4 cup (60ml) maple syrup, plus 1½ tbs extra
1 vanilla bean
112g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch salt flakes
112g unsalted butter, cut into small cubes, at room temperature
2 eggs
110g light brown sugar
30mls milk
120g creme fraiche, to serve
Lemon-maple butter
20ml lemon juice
1/4 cup (60ml) maple syrup
50g unsalted butter, cut into small cubes, refrigerated
Method
Preheat oven to 180°C conventional. Trim the lemon, slicing and discarding the tips, then cut the lemon into very thin (2mm thick) rounds to get 16 slices. Discard the seeds. Place a large non-stick pan over high heat. Working in about 2 batches, add lemon slices in a single layer and cook until nicely charred on both sides, 1-2 minutes per side. Repeat with the remaining slices and set aside.
Line a baking dish about 17 x17cm in size with a piece of baking paper large enough to cover the base and sides, and enough overhang to later fold over the batter. Pour ¼ cup maple syrup into the prepared dish. Halve the vanilla bean lengthwise, scrape the seeds into a small bowl and then add the pod to the prepared dish. Top with the charred lemon slices, spreading out so they cover the entire base while overlapping slightly in spots.
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, and whisk on medium speed to combine. Add the room-temperature butter, eggs, brown sugar, milk, reserved vanilla seeds and the extra 1½ tbs maple syrup, and mix on medium-low speed for 2 minutes until combined. The mixture will look like its split a little with some smaller cubes of butter, but that’s okay. You can also prepare the batter in a food processor
Gently spoon the mixture directly on top of lemons in the baking dish trying to avoid moving the lemons around too much. Using the back of a spoon, smooth over the mixture to create an even layer. Fold over the excess baking paper to cover, then wrap the dish tightly in foil.
Place the baking dish into a larger roasting. Carefully add about 3cm of boiling water to the pan, transfer to the oven and bake for 1 hour - 1 hour 10 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Lift the baking dish from the water, remove foil and baking paper. Set aside for 5 minutes before carefully inverting onto a platter, carefully removing baking paper to expose the lemons.
During the final 10 minutes of baking, prepare the lemon-maple butter: add the lemon juice and maple syrup to a small saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Cook for about 2 minutes, then turn down heat to low. Once the mixture is no longer simmering, gradually whisk in chilled butter a little at a time until you have an emulsified sauce.
Drizzle half the lemon-maple butter all over the warm sponge cake and serve warm, with the remaining lemon-maple butter and crème fraiche alongside.
You may have noticed the absence of lemon maple butter in all the pictures but I ran out of maple syrup so I just served the pudding with the crème fraiche. I did make a small amount of the lemon maple butter and it was delicious so don't skip this step.
See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.
Bye for now,
Jillian
No comments
Post a Comment