Last weekend I visited Fiesta Farms to do a little shopping for that aforementioned rabbit, among other things.
While I wandered the aisles, one of the other treats I came across was a lovely 2 pound clamshell of those alluring Meyer lemons. Surprising even myself, I resisted the urge to buy up the whole stand on sight.
You see, I’ve been enjoying the taste of Meyer lemons in restaurants for ages, but until now had never seen them at the grocery store. Of course, since I use an organic delivery service I rarely go to a grocery store to begin with, so I should hardly be surprised. I’ve been pondering where to find Meyers (as well as the more ornate Buddha’s hand) for quite some time, so when I spotted these I immediately had to snap some up.
Coincidentally, days later I happened on a fellow Torontonian’s entry in Tigress’ Can Jam who had managed to find Buddha’s hand lemons (Whole Foods apparently carries them – go figure!) in Toronto, so I imagine I will be visiting them soon, too. I’m not entirely certain what I intend to do with a Buddha’s hand lemon yet, but I’ve been rolling a concept similar to limoncello around in my mind along with the possibility of infusing it into some rye. But that is a different tale for another day. Back to those Meyer lemons…
The intoxicatingly fragrant package sat on my shiny stainless counter taunting me for nearly 2 days before I was inspired enough to use one. Fancy lemons call for better-than-ordinary ideas, after all.
At the not-quite-Christmas party for the Everyman’s workplace last weekend, his co-workers reminded me how we’d all been enamoured by the red velvet whoopie pies I made back in November. And while they were not the striking red that typically signifies a red velvet, they tasted almost exactly like a gourmet Jos Louis (read: made with actual food). From there it wasn’t much of a stretch to want to modify the original whoopie recipe from Epicurious again (it’s for plain chocolate pies) into a more lemony varietal.
Starting out, I added oomph to the soft cakes by including the Meyer zest in the batter too, not wanting to pass up the opportunity to layer its heavenly aroma on top of the juice’s zing. Whilst mixing I noticed I’d run out of cow butter, but decided to substitute the goat butter that The Hoof Café had gotten us hooked on, figuring it wouldn’t make a huge deal to the end product.
Once the soft fluff was homogeneous, I spread small splotches on a few parchment covered sheets and baked them.
It wasn’t until after I’d finished that I remembered how I’d gotten them uniformly round the last time (piped out of a pastry bag) but I made fairly matched pairs of all the pies anyway.
In the meantime, I set to work searching for a suitable frosting to sandwich the pies with. Because I wanted to showcase the Meyer lemon, I figured it had to be relatively plain with just a hint of vanilla, but I didn’t want something crusty like a buttercream. Epicurious came to the rescue again with its 7 Minute Frosting, which is basically just cooked egg whites and sugar whipped to the texture of a marshmallow crème. In less than 10 minutes I had a light as a cloud frosting that looked and tasted dreamy.
Once the pies had thoroughly cooled, I began gluing pairs together with a thin spackling of frosting. Wrapped in a sheath of waxed paper to prevent the delicate cakes from sticking to each other, the Meyer lemon whoopie pies were as good as done.
That evening after dinner, the Everyman and I decided to split a whoopie pie to see how they turned out. After a bite or two I knew something had gone a little sideways. Tasting again, I realized it was the goat butter, because the crème tasted lovely plain. I’d neglected to notice that when we ate it at The Hoof Café on grilled toast, the savouriness wasn’t nearly as pronounced. I couldn’t shake the goatiness of it, and declined to nibble further. Conversely, the Everyman thought they were just super and took the extras in to work with him all week.
I’ll likely try them again without the goat butter, but before I do that I intend to try my hand at something along the lines of a lemon chiffon cake with the rest of my Meyers.
Foodie’s Meyer Lemon Whoopie Pies
3 c. flour
1 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp baking soda
0.5 tsp salt
12 tbsp butter
2 c. sugar
zest of 2 lemons
juice of 2 lemons
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 c. buttermilk
Preheat oven to 350*. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside. In a mixer, beat the butter, sugar and zest until smooth. Add the eggs, lemon juice and vanilla and continue mixing until blended. Turn the mixer to low and add half of the flour, mixing until incorporated. Add the buttermilk, then the remaining flour and mix until smooth.
Spoon or pipe batter onto a parchment-lined baking sheet to form your desired size of whoopie pies (3 inches works well) and space generously (6 or so to a sheet). Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes, then cool completely. Once cooled, peel the cookies from the parchment and spread the frosting of your choice onto the bottom of one cookie, then sandwich together with the bottom of a second cookie.
Makes 48 cookies, or 24 (3″) sandwiches
Until next time…
Tags: Baking, cookies, Epicurious, Fiesta Farms, frosting, lemons, Purveyors, Recipes, Restaurants, The Hoof Cafe, Whole Foods, whoopie pie
