Citrus Sunday - Triple Citrus Bars

I've mentioned before that I love cooking magazines.  It was such a revelation the first time I ever read one (thanks to my wonderful husband who thought it would give me something to do while I was wiped out by the flu 13 years ago).  There are so many enticing new recipes in every issue!  Lots are seasonally appropriate, so sometimes I'm inspired to drop what I'm doing and make a new recipe right away.  That happened with the July/August 2006 issue of Cook's Illustrated.  Amazing that I remember that almost 6 years ago, isn't it?  The recipe that grabbed my attention was for Key Lime Bars.  I immediately made a double batch to take to a 4th of July potluck.  They were a huge hit and several people asked for the recipe.  I made the bars several times shortly after that, but as often happens, I got sidetracked by new recipes after that and have only made them maybe once or twice since then.

When I was trying to come up with a good citrus recipe for my blog event, I considered several ideas.  I even made an orange & vanilla bundt cake that turned out pretty good, but just wasn't quite what I was looking for.  I'm always short on time and frequently indecisive as well, so it really isn't surprising that I was sitting here yesterday (yay for a Saturday off!) still trying to decide what to make.  I turned to Eat Your Books to see what I could find on my bookshelves.  I bought some limes when we were shopping Friday night (to add to the lemons, tangerines & tangelos already in the fridge), so I started off searching that.  Nothing jumped out and grabbed me, so I thought to try searching for "citrus" instead.  Bingo!

Triple Citrus Bars came up a couple times in the list--they're a variation on the Key Lime Bars, and can be found in the magazine (online) as well as in the new Cook's Illustrated Cookbook.  Instead of just lime juice and zest (you can use either key limes or regular Persian limes), you use lemon and orange juice and zest as well.  The zests are used in equal amounts (1 1/2 teaspoons of each), but most of the juice is lime, with just a tablespoon each of lemon and orange.  I actually used tangelo zest and juice instead of orange, since that's what I had.

Rather than graham crackers, the crust is made with animal crackers.  They are pulsed in the food processor along with some brown sugar and a bit of salt and then melted butter is added to bind everything together.  This recipe gave me a change to use a new baking pan that I bought myself for my birthday--a Fat Daddio's 8" square baking pan.  (I love my Pyrex baking pans, but they don't work well for everything.)  The crust is baked for 18-20 minutes, which allows enough time to mix up the filling.  The filling consists of cream cheese, the zests, a bit of salt, sweetened condensed milk, an egg yolk, and the citrus juices.  Once the crust is baked and cooled for a few minutes, the filling is added and the bars are baked for another 15-20 minutes.  The bars are allowed to cool to room temperature, then are refrigerated for at least a couple hours.

The verdict?  These aren't quite as tart as the straight lime ones, but I like the flavor that the mix of fruits brings to the bars.  As the test kitchen cooks determined, the addition of the cream cheese and egg yolk helps firm up the filling so that it can be cut into neat bars.  I'm definitely not going to let so much time pass before I make these bars again.

If you'd like to try the recipe, you can find it here on the Cook's Illustrated website, or in the Cook's Illustrated Cookbook.  And be sure to check out all the other yummy citrus recipes that my blogging friends have made!  If you'd like to join us in the future, leave a comment or email me at diskitchennotebook at gmail dot com, and I'll add you to my email list.

Pop goes the strawberry

I mentioned a while back that my dad was very cool and got me a Sur la Table gift card for my birthday back in February.  It was an ends-in-a-zero birthday, so the gift card amount was pretty nice. =)  I spent a little of it, but have been carrying the card around in my wallet for quite a while, not knowing what else to buy.  My bakeware collection is pretty extensive already, and I hadn't come up with anything else that I just had to have.  

We've been making lots of ice cream because it's ridiculously hot every day here.  The girls were also bugging me to make popsicles, and the June Bon Appetit issue has lots of cool frozen treats (not ice cream) that I want to make.  I have an inexpensive little popsicle mold, but it doesn't hold very much.  I was debating getting a new one when I ran across something in the back of a recent Cook's Illustrated magazine--a review of the Zoku Quick Pop Maker.  I quickly decide that this was what to spend the rest of my gift card on!  Normally, I might not have bought something like this, since it seems a bit expensive just to make popsicles.  But birthdays and gift cards are for things you wouldn't necessarily buy for yourself, right? =)

Like the canister for my ice cream maker, the pop maker has to be frozen ahead of time--about 24 hours ahead, to make sure it's completely frozen.  I managed to make what I hope is a permanent spot for it in my freezer.  Once the unit is frozen, you insert the sticks, pour in your popsicle mixture (2 ounces per pop) and wait 8-10 minutes.  Voila!  The first time we just tried it with some strawberry yogurt thinned with a little milk to make it pourable.  I had a little trouble getting those out--not sure if I left them in too long, if the mixture wasn't right, or if it was just because it was the first batch.  Since then, I haven't had any trouble.  For the second round, we just used some orange and grape juice (not together!).  It's so cool that you can go from wanting to make an ice pop to eating one in ten minutes!

For the latest round, I was inspired by one of the ice cream flavors I made recently.  It was for Roasted Strawberry-Buttermilk Ice Cream from my latest cookbook.  (Yes, I'm obsessed. How could you tell?)  It calls for roasting sliced strawberries in the oven (with sugar) and making a purée which is then added to the ice cream base.  I made the ice cream, and found that it had a mild strawberry flavor.  I wanted to increase the amount of strawberry, so when I put the freshly churned ice cream into a freezer container, I layered in some of the extra purée.  That wasn't the best idea, since the purée ends up kind of icy--though it's an interesting contrast to the creamy texture of the ice cream.  But as I was eating it, I thought that it would be great as a popsicle.  So I made a double batch of the purée, chilled it thoroughly, and pulled out the Zoku.  Since the girls weren't home when I made these, I put the finished pops in small ziploc bags and stored them in the freezer.

The verdict?  Definitely a hit with the kiddos.  Okay, with Brianna at least, since Gillian fell asleep in the car on the way home and hasn't tried one yet. =)  It's hard to go wrong with strawberries and sugar.  The purée also has some acid--in the form of lemon or lime juice--to perk it up.  I'm sure we'll be making more popsicles with the purée, as well as coming up with other fun things to put in the Zoku.  I've found a couple of lists to get us started, from Bon Appetit and Fine Cooking.  If you'd like to try my strawberry ones, here's what I ended up doing.  And stay tuned for more from Ice Cream Week!  (which may end up being more than a week, at the rate I'm going)

Roasted Strawberry Purée

(adapted from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home)

680 grams (24 ounces) fresh strawberries, hulled and cut into thick slices

140 grams (2/3 cup) granulated sugar

juice of 2 limes (or lemons, if you prefer)

Preheat your oven to 375ºF.  Place the strawberries in a 13"x9" glass baking dish.  Sprinkle the sugar over the berries and gently mix the two together.  Roast the strawberries for about ten minutes, until they are just tender.  Transfer the strawberries and syrup to a tall, narrow container and add the lime juice.  Purée with an immersion blender until smooth.  Chill thoroughly before adding to ice cream base or making popsicles.  

I made this double batch because I wanted a lot of purée to play around with.  You can also halve the ingredients and roast the strawberries in an 8" square baking dish.  You can also purée the mixture in a food processor or blender; I just didn't want to wash mine.

Note: This post was not sponsored in any way.  I just happen to like the Zoku and wanted to tell you about my experiences with it.

12 Days of Cookies - Day 2 - Lime Snowballs

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...  Unfortunately, powdered sugar snow is as close as I'm going to get here in central Texas.  It's supposed to get into the 30s tonight (Tuesday) and almost down to freezing tomorrow night (Wednesday), but snow is a rarity.  While we've had a couple of ice storms, the last time we had appreciable snowfall was in early 2004.  I actually remember it quite well--it was a Saturday, Valentine's Day, and Brianna was a little over a year old...

Unfortunately, she was too little to remember it.  But I can show her the photographic evidence.  Gillian, on the other hand, hasn't seen real snow at all.  Who knows, maybe this winter...

So not much chance of snow, but I do have these yummy Lime Snowballs.  They're my second pick for the 12 Days of Cookies.  In appearance they remind me of a family favorite from this time of year.  We call them nut balls, but most people know them as Mexican wedding cookies or Russian tea cakes.  They're my dad's favorite--we'd have to hide them from him so he wouldn't eat them all too quickly.  The favorite hiding place was to stick the cookie tins in the dryer (when it was not in use).  He never thought to look in there.  =)  These cookies have the same powdered sugar exterior, but no nuts.  And they're flavored with a triple dose of lime--zest, juice and oil.

I had to go looking for the lime oil (found this nifty variety pack at Sur la Table), but the rest of the ingredient list is straightforward.  Besides the three lime components, there's only flour, cornstarch, unsalted butter and powdered sugar.  I thought it was a bit odd that there was no salt in the recipe, so I added about 1/4 teaspoon.  Once the dough was mixed, I used my #70 disher to scoop out balls of it and put them on a parchment-lined baking sheet.  (That scoop was just about right--I ended up with 35 cookies.)  I baked them for 22 minutes, at which point they were browning around the edges.  I let the cookies cool on the pan for a couple minutes, then transferred them to a rack.  The recipe says to just sift powdered sugar over them, but I didn't quite follow those directions.  While the cookies were still warm, I rolled them (gently) in powdered sugar so they were thoroughly coated.  Then once I had coated them all, I dusted powdered sugar over them as well.

The verdict?  Yeah, there's no doubt there's lime in these. =)  I like them a lot.  So does Brianna--yay, another hit!  They have a great buttery, melt in your mouth texture.  I took a bunch to the daycare Tuesday morning so I wouldn't eat them all myself.  I dropped them off at the front office, then took Gillian to her classroom.  By the time I returned to the front of the building, a couple of the teachers had already sampled them and decided they were wonderful.  By the time this 12 days is over, they're either going to love me or hate me.  =)  Might have to find some other places to share cookies.  I'll definitely be making these again, and hey, I can make lemon and orange ones, too, since I have those oils as well.

If you'd like to make a batch for yourself, you can find the recipe here.

And be sure to check out the other bakers participating in the 12 Days of Cookies to see what they've baked up for today!

Andrea of Andrea's Recipes

(honorary member and our founder but not participating this year)

Claire of The Barefoot Kitchen

Courtney of Coco Cooks

Judy of No Fear Entertaining

Kelly of Sass & Veracity

Michelle of Big Black Dog

RJ of Flamingo Musings

Sandy of At the Baker's Bench

Tiffany of The Nesting Project