Happy March! We’ve almost made it through winter so of course, we are now in deep with lemons.
new on bbs
Lemon Olive Oil Cake
Fluffy ultra lemony single layer cake made with zest and juice and soaked in a lemon syrup. It’s simple (one bowl, can be done with a whisk if you’ve got the patience) and I’ll plead you to use a really good olive oil because you will probably taste it ;-)
updated
Oat Flour Banana Muffins
Gluten-free and oh so soft and moist banana muffins made with my favorite, oat flour.
updated
Marble Pound Cake
Super tender sour cream pound cake, half vanilla half chocolate - marbled together. In the right bundt it kind of looks like a chocolate vanilla rainbow 🥺
speaking of rainbows
Rainbow Sugar Cookies
Crispy edges, chewy centered sugar cookies with two citrus flavors and three berry flavors! You don’t have to do the food dye but it does make it purdy.
reader review
“Absolutely delicious. This lemon curd is just perfect—velvety smooth and the best punchy lemon taste. The meringue is so luscious and yummy—perfectly balances the sharpness of the lemon with a soft fluffiness. And the poppy seeds are a fun addition for subtle taste and texture. Love love love!” - Chelsea
(on Lemon Meringue Bars)
weekly notes & reads
“When enslaved Africans escaped the Surinamese plantations overseen by Dutch colonists from the 17th to the 19th century, several women ingeniously hid rice grains in their hair to grow when they found refuge deep in the Amazon rainforest. Now, centuries later, a gene bank is working to save Suriname’s rare rice species while also preparing communities to be more resilient to the climate crisis.” - How rice hidden by a woman fleeing slavery in the 1700s could help her descendants, The Guardian.
“For years, settler violence against Palestinians has peaked during the harvest season, yet Israeli authorities consistently refrain from taking preventive action as a matter of policy. This year, with the war in Gaza underway, the military has enlisted many settlers for regional operations in the West Bank. The settlers have used this power to block roads leading to Palestinian land and to set up roadblocks on agricultural roads, denying Palestinians access to olive groves near settlements.” - Israel used the Gaza war to impose extreme restrictions on the annual West Bank olive harvest, B’Teselem.
“For the past decade, the oldest cultivated trees on Earth have been showing their vulnerability with many of the Mediterranean's olive groves drying up due to increasingly difficult weather conditions such as droughts and severe hailstorms leading to floods. And in 2023, the region – as well as the whole planet – experienced the hottest summer on record. Italy, Greece and Spain, the largest olive-oil producing nations, have felt the greatest impact – as have chefs and consumers, who are baffled at what to cook with in lieu of their staple ingredient.
"I never saw in all my life a dryness like this one," said Rossella Boeri, olive oil producer and fifth-generation owner of Olio Roi in Badalucco, Italy, referring to the drought of this past summer.” - Why Olive Oil Prices are Soaring, BBC.
I am often asked what brand olive oil I think is best for an olive oil bake, I am not very fancy and I just buy the Organic evoo at Costco, occasionally I’ll have Graza but that’s more for salads (too expensive for as much as you need for a cake!). But if you’re interested, The Strategist has a list of the 14 best olive oils (surprisingly my go-to bulk purchase made the list :p).
I am planning on bookending the month of march with lemon recipes, next week I’ll have the lemon raspberry cake I’ve been talking about on IG and the last friday of march will be an extra special lemon recipe ;-)
and for members
Poppy Seed Cheesecake with Blueberry Compote
Ultra creamy, tangy cheesecake scented with a heap of lemon zest and studded with crispy poppy seeds.