Meyer lemons get more popular every year, and what was a relatively unknown fruit just a few years ago can now be found on restaurant menus, in mainstream supermarkets and food/home magazines. Meyer lemons aren’t lemons; they’re actually a hybrid between a mandarin orange and a lemon. The cross was originally developed in China, where both types of citrus fruit occur naturally. The fruit was brought into the US in the early 1900s by a man named Frank Meyer, after whom the lemons are named.
Meyer lemons are generally smaller than regular lemons, with a spherical shape and a thin peel. They tend to be more of a golden color than a bright yellow. Since Meyers are a hybrid, they have a different flavor than standard lemons. They are slightly sweeter and much less acidic. They still taste like lemons, of course, they just don’t have the same zesty bite to them. They’re more expensive than regular lemons, but tend to be very juicy.
I should also note that although most Meyer lemons will fit in with this description, not all of them will. I am lucky enough to have a small Meyer lemon tree (note that it can be cheaper to keep a small tree in a yard or a large pot than buying Meyer lemons when they’re in season) and my lemons are huge. They’re easily three times the size of the lemons I see in stores and they have a fairly thick rind, although the Meyer lemon flavor is spot-on.
Meyer lemons are a good choice for most recipes that call for lemon because you can get a full lemon flavor without having to add excess sugar (or other ingredients) to temper the acidity of the lemon. They’re great in desserts and all kinds of baked goods, and work wonderfully in savory dishes where you don’t want lemon to overwhelm the rest of the meal. That being said, they’re not the greatest choice for lemon recipes where you really want that extra acidity – like lemonade, for instance.
It’s hard to find a good lemon cookie. Either they don’t have a particularly strong or distinctive flavor to them, or the cookies have an artificial sweetness to them due to overuse of (cheap) imitation flavoring. As a result, I was a bit reluctant to try Trader Joe’s Meyer Lemon Cookie Thins at first, but was willing to give TJ’s the benefit of the doubt because their Ginger Thins are quite good, so the lemon wafers seemed promising.
I wasn’t disappointed.
These thins are bright and lemony, and are made with all natural ingredients – including butter and lemon – instead of using artificial flavorings. The wafers themselves are incredibly thin, maybe 1/8th of an inch high, and are very delicate. They break very easily in the package, despite their protective plastic case, so they must be treated with care. They almost shatter into your mouth when you bite into them, then the thin cookies seem to melt onto your tongue; it’s a perfect combination of crispy and delicate.
I can’t say with certainty that I could distinguish these meyer lemon thins from ordinary lemon thins if given an option, but the lemon flavor is unmistakeably zesty and fresh. The cookies are tasty and very addictive. They’re good with tea and work well in place of graham crackers if you want to make a citrus tart crust.
The Super Bowl isn’t a holiday, but it is one of the biggest events – sporting or otherwise – of the year. Last year, in 2008, over 97 million people tuned in to watch the Big Game. I suspect that most of those people were sitting around with family and friends, either at a small gathering or a big party. I know that I was. I love Super Bowl parties for the chance to socialize and munch on some tasty snacks. I always try to do something with a little bit of a football theme to it, just because it helps me and everyone else at the party get into the spirit (even if they’re not football fans to begin with).
This year, I’m making football-shaped mini cakes. Cupcakes didn’t give me quite the “look” I wanted, so I opted to bake a chocolate sheet cake and carve it by hand. It’s actually very quick and easy to make the football shapes. All you need to do is slice up the cooled sheet cake into bars, then trim off the corners to give them that signature shape. If you’re lucky enough to have a football-shaped cookie cutter, you can certainly use that instead. Feel free to munch on the scraps while you work.
The chocolate cake is very moist and has a great chocolate flavor. It’s tender, but holds together well enough to carve without getting crumbs all over the place. I coated my footballs with a thin chocolate glaze. You can try to dip the tops of the cake into the glaze if you like, but I’d recommend simply pouring a bit over each individual cake. The glaze is thin enough that it won’t give you a smooth finish on the sides of the football (although the top of the cake will be smooth), but I think it needed to be thin so that its flavor didn’t totally overwhelm the small cakes. I used a bit of confectioners’ sugar mixed with water to create an icing that would finish off the cakes with ball-like lacing.
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Everyone who bakes – bakes from scratch, that is, and maybe some who don’t – has at least one bag of chocolate chips in the pantry. Chocolate chip cookies are one of the most basic and most popular treats out there. There is a lot more to chocolate chips than chocolate chip cookies, however, and The Essential Chocolate Chip Cookbook sets out to showcase some of the many possibilities for this pantry staple.
Your average chocolate chips are made from semisweet chocolate and tend to be somewhere between 50 and 60% cacao content, putting them at a level that is less sweet than milk chocolate and sweeter than dark chocolate. It’s a great medium ground and, even though it’s not everyone’s top choice when it comes to eating chocolate, it is a great choice for cooking. Semisweet chocolate can be adapted to just about any recipe, and because chocolate chips are so readily available, they’re a great starting point for more than just cookies (even though you can’t go wrong with basic cookies). There are other types of chocolate chips out there to choose from, including bittersweet and white chocolate chips, but semisweet is by far the most common.
The cookbook is divided up into chapters by type and stars out with chocolate chip cookies, including recipes like Toffee Chip Snickerdoodles alongside more classic sounding cookies. Other sections include Brownies, Bars and Muffins; Pies, Puddings and Tarts; Chocolate Chip Cakes w/o Frosting; Chocolate Chip Cakes with Frosting or Filling; and Chocolate Chip Ice Cream and Other Desserts. The photos in the book are outstanding. Simple and colorful, they really make all the treats look irresistible. The recipes are straightforward and easy to follow, and there are enough ideas in the book that you’ll probably leave it feeling a little bit inspired to experiment in the kitchen.
