Lemon Ricotta Bites, or a little bit of sunshine on your Friday

See?  I told you it would be impossible to keep me out of the kitchen for too long.  On Monday night, I was at a departmental dinner party, and the graduate studies admin, Belen, made these absolutely lovely meyer lemon ricotta cookies for dessert.  The tang of the lemon, with the lightness of the ricotta cookie--so light that it's almost like a cake!--really brought a ray of brightness and sunshine into my day.  There's just something about meyer lemon that makes me smile, in addition to the wonderful company at the party.  Thankfully, Belen was happy to share the source of the recipe, and I just had to replicate these cookies myself at home to power me through this week of proposal-writing.

Alright, now I'm headed back to work.  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and if you need a little pick-me-up, these cookie bites are most definitely what I'd prescribe.  :-)

Also, my thoughts go out to those in Japan, as well as New Zealand--stay safe!

Chocolate Ricotta and Lemon Poppyseed Pound Cakes

I am, by nature, a very indecisive person.  The moment that I have to choose between two or more things, I become a very unhappy person.  Sometimes, my indecisiveness is a good thing.  For instance, when I could't make up my mind about what kind of pancakes to make when my best friend requested pancakes during my recent Los Angeles visit, I made a tasting menu of four different pancakes.  That was fun, and it worked out for the best of all of us.  But, despite having positive outcomes every now and then, being as indecisive as I am really just causes me more trouble than it's worth.  Case in point: pound cake.

Between chocolate pound cake and lemon poppyseed pound cake--two of my favorite pound cake flavors--how am I supposed to decide?  So, naturally, I made both.  Naturally.

The lemon poppyseed pound cake is the same cake base as the one I use in my lemon-lavender pound cake recipe, except when I'm craving something with no fuss to the lemon, I just add poppyseed instead of lavender.  Dense yet moist, with a powerful kick of lemony goodness and the tiny little crunches of poppyseed embedded inside, all topped off with a deliciously tart and sweet lemon icing.  Mmmmm.

As for the chocolate ricotta pound cake, the ricotta cheese lends the cake an incredibly light fluffiness and slight tang that you just don't normally get in a chocolate pound cake, and I like that unexpected soft texture with the deep, dark chocolate inside.  You could opt to top this pound cake with dark chocolate ganache, but that's perhaps a little too heavy with the ricotta.  I find that a quick sprinkle of powdered sugar makes for a perfectly simple finishing touch.

This post is light on words and heavy on visuals, because I've been so tied up in writing for my day job that I find myself incredibly at a loss of words at all other times.  I'll sit down at the computer to type out posts or emails and just not have anything to say at all.  Even my twitter has been unusually quieter for the past few weeks.  Is this normal?

So, since my words are still struggling to come out, I leave you with just one simple question:  which will you choose?  Lemon poppyseed pound cake or Chocolate ricotta pound cake?

or, both?


Read on for recipe...

PotW: Meyer lemon ricotta pancakes with lemon curd and warmed blueberries

[last time's Pancake of the Week: Ginger-champagne pancakes with champagne-poached pears]

Meyer lemons!  Oh, how I adore you.

If there's one thing I truly miss about my childhood home, it's the huge meyer lemon tree that's in the backyard.  Our lemon tree (though it should really be deemed a bush, since it's no taller than I am) is quite prolific about producing lemons year round, so we were (and my parents still are) never short of lemons for use.  But, having moved out on my own now, I don't have the luxury of a reliable lemon tree, so when I stumble upon a large box of fresh meyer lemons at Costco, I am literally in heaven.

Given the score! of meyer lemons that have been sitting in my kitchen for the past week, our house has been filled daily with the delicious aroma of lemons in literally everything.  (case in point: mini lemon meringue tartlettes, anyone?) My skin even smells like lemons so much because I'm constantly zesting or juicing.  But who am I to complain?

Lemon-ricotta pancakes

with lemon curd and warmed blueberries

Anyhow, the inspiration for these pancakes came from seeing a Facebook post from my friend who had had lemon-ricotta pancakes somewhere in the Netherlands, and the combination just sounded so awesome that I needed to try them for myself.  The recipe here (adapted from ones around the internets) involves separating the eggs and whipping the egg whites to stiff peaks before incorporating everything else.  Though I've never made pancakes with this technique before, the results were so incredible and lighter-than-air that I'm most definitely going to have to experiment with whipped-egg-white-base pancakes more.

To go on top, I opted for even more lemon flavor! with a generous dollop of super, super yummy meyer lemon curd, which--honestly--I just eat straight out of the pot whenever I make it.  I've already made two huge batches of it within the space of a week, and I don't think this second batch will last much longer....

Then, to finish the plate, add some blueberries that have been warmed in the same pan the pancakes were cooked in, and you have an amazingly scrumptious breakfast that's quite reminiscent of summertime flavors.  It most definitely helped to infuse some sunshine into these rainy weeks we've been having here in the Bay.

Have a great start to the week, everyone!  (or, just eat lemon curd.  That's worked out pretty well for me, too. :-P)


Read on for recipe...

Just peachy.

I'm always a bit sad when the season for stone fruit comes to a close (or perhaps it's because this coincides with the end of summer, good weather, and carefree days as well).

not the prettiest thing in the world, but what a good way to start your day and enjoy the last few available peaches of the season.

Vanilla pancakes
with white peaches,
caramelized brown sugar,
ricotta cheese

You can't see the caramelized sugar because it's in the middle layer with the peaches. I wanted to do something extra fancy and flambe the peaches before putting them on the pancake, but Richard, my breakfast guest, said no.