• Gorgeous Lemon Meringue Cupcakes from Omnomicon
• Meyer Lemon and Fresh Cranberry Scones from Smitten Kitchen
• The Pioneer Woman cooks a lovely Baked Lemon Pasta
• Smitten Kitchen’s Mint/Lemon Granitas
• Mmmm Panna Cotta… Lemon-Blueberry!
• Megacrafty’s Blackberry Lemon Muffins
• How to preserve lemons from Sunday Suppers
• Baking Bites’ Lemon Poppyseed Cookies
• Lemon Bars
• Lemon Cupcakes Filled with Lemon Curd
• Lemon Drop Cookies from Oh Fransson
• Picky Cook’s lemon curd desserts
• The Perfect Cosmo
• whole lemon tart

• lemon meringue cake
• Foolproof Lemon Tart

And of course, a few more from Dabbled:

• How to Make Candied Lemon Peel
• Tutorial: Make a Lemon Pie, or 2!

Got more?  Leave a link in the comments!

What to do with Lemon Juice

Once you have zested a bunch of lemons, they will not stay good for very long, so you will want to go ahead and use them, or at least juice them. Ditto citrus ‘interiors’ left over from rind projects–you need to go ahead and do something with that juice! There are, of course, many options, but here are a few…..

• When life gives you lemons, make Lemonade!
• Freeze for later use (see below)
• Have a cocktail party, featuring cocktails containing lemon juice.  Lemon drops are one of my favorites, but you can also do lemon margaritas, or whatever strikes your fancy.  @rit on Twitter recommends his favorite lemon cocktail… just mix fresh squeezed lemonade + Cruzan single barrel estate rum– It is the only lemon cocktail you ever need!
• Invisible ink for your kids
• Make a recipe requiring lemon juice (but not zest)…This one from Smitten Kitchen for Lemon-Mint Granita would do nicely, but of course you’d have to serve it in regular bowls, not the cute little lemon shells! (thx SisterDiane!)
• Of course, many recipes which call for both juice and zest can actually be prepared without the zest, so if only a little is called for, you can always just try leaving it out.  We’ll have lots of lemon recipes tomorrow, so stay tuned for that!

Storing Lemon Juice:

If you aren’t going to do anything with your lemon juice right now, you should store it for when you need it.  Lemon juice should keep several weeks in the fridge, so you can just bottle up some or all of your juice and use it over the next few weeks.

If you aren’t going to use it all, you’ll probably want to freeze some for future use.  I find the easiest way is to use the same method I use for chicken broth.  I freeze 1/4 cup portions in silicone baking cups (ice cube trays work for this as well).  Once frozen, remove from the cups and store the frozen chunks in a freezer bag.   Then it’s easy to pull out just the amount you need!

Tomorrow we continue Lemon Week with a bunch of Lemon Recipes… If you’ve got some you want included, be sure to let me know!

Lemon Week Posts

Limoncello is an Italian lemon liqueur, tasty to sip by itself, use in cocktails, or whatever you would like to do with a cold tasty lemony alcoholic treat.  And you can make this with oranges, or any citrus fruit.  The steps are summarized below the slideshow ..  Click the slideshow to start viewing the pictures!

After much research, I decided on a recipe from the trusty E-Gullet forums.  Go there to read the full recipe, and lots of tips, but here is the summary.  I modified it a bit based on other recipes provided by friends and through the links on the forum.

Click to view on Flickr

1. Lemons – Wash well. Organic or Homegrown lemons are recommended since you’re using the peel…
2. You’ll also need vodka – 100 proof.
3. Zest the lemons – A microplane grater is your best friend for this.  If you don’t have one, you should get one!
4. Our lemons are now nude, and our zest is in a large jar, big enough to hold our fifth of vodka.
5. Add your vodka, stir.   And now… we wait.  For at least 2 weeks–some recipes say 2 months!  Until your zest looks whitish and the liquid is a lovely yellow.
6. Now, strain out that zest.  Use cheesecloth, a coffee filter would take forever.
7. Now you basically have really strong lemon vodka.  Not a bad thing in itself, but it’s not limoncello.  You’ll need to add sugar, so heat up a 1:1 simple syrup, and stir until disolved.
8. Add the syrup to your vodka mixture.
9. At this point, (minor CraftFail!) my source recipe said to add another 750ml of 80 proof vodka.  I felt like, at least in my case, this really made it too strong, and I didn’t want to weaken the lemon flavor with too much more water or sugar.  So I’d suggest adding several cups of vodka, then taste.  Then add more sugar syrup, water, or vodka as desired to get a nice sippable liqueur.  Based on advice from another recipe, I let this stage sit a while too.
   Anyway, once it’s to your liking, bottle it up and stick it in the freezer, it’s excellent chilled!

NOTES:

• One thing to remember is lemons are different sizes, obviously, and the strength of your lemon flavor is going to depend on how much zest you use.  If you think your lemons are small, USE MORE!
• I did use the zest of one lime, as suggested in the recipe, but it’s not pictured here.

Recipe Resource: KatieLoeb – E-Gullet forums (There is a bunch of information, tips, and recipe ideas at this link, check it out)

Tomorrow:  What to do with the lemon juice!

Read all of Lemon Week…

Edit:  Welcome new readers!  Be sure to grab the RSS feed!

You’ll just download the pdf, and print on Iron On Transfer Paper. Then just applique on the finished patch!

Glitter Vinyl & Thread has an excellent tutorial, with lots of pics, on how to do the whole process. She does it with Tea Towels, but the same process would work great with baby onesies, or t-shirts.

The image on the PDF already flipped for you, so you can easily use it for transfers. Download the Lemon Lady PDF.

Of course, the same principle works with any image, from your kid’s artwork to a favorite photograph…

Other ideas: Transfer paper is really cool for other things too… you can use heat transfer paper to bake the image on to a tile, for a nifty trivet. There are even kits that let you print directly onto silk with your inkjet printer!

So, try it out! And I’d love to see pics of your final products…!

So, follow the instructions here at Brownie Points , for the full details, but in short: First you blanch your citrus… then you Candy it. The thing I feel like i added to the process was the method of candy-ing. I used a French Press coffee maker to candy my fruit. The french press is a lovely way of keeping your fruit submerged in the sugar solution, easy peasy! Finally, you dry the fruit, and dip it! I dipped some of mine in sugar, shown here, but I also dipped some in dark chocolate (and white chocolate)… yummy yummy!

Anyway, this worked fabulously, with one caveat. Make sure you blanch your slices long enough. Several minutes I think. I think I took mine out too quickly.

Lemon Week is Here! Read all posts

All next week, Yummy and fun things to do with one of my favorite citrus fruits! From candied lemons to limoncello… stay tuned for some good eats, and more…

Do you have a favorite recipe.. or something even more interesting that you like to do with lemons? Blog about it next week and send me the link, and I’ll feature it! Or just email me your tips & recipes at DOT [at] DABBLED [dot] ORG. Spread the word!

See all LEMON WEEK posts