All Things Lemon Class a Sunny Success

Saturday’s All Things Lemon class, with 10 eager participants, is a resounding success. It is the perfect time to celebrate citrus season here in Phoenix, Arizona. You cannot beat the quality and freshness of picking a lemon, orange, grapefruit, tangelo or tangerine right from the tree. This class is an opportunity to gather and learn, meet new friends, and taste fresh recipes.

Making and Baking

We start in the kitchen, with our first recipe, an easy Meyer lemon tart. We learn how to blind bake a sweet pastry crust and whirl all the filling ingredients in a blender.

Adding a dusting of confectioner’s sugar, thin lemon slices, fresh berries and mint sprigs dresses up this dessert for company.

Typically, I make most of our cakes from scratch, but I realize that store-bought cake mixes makes life easier. The next recipe (thank you, Chloe!), Limoncello Bundt cake is made with both a white cake mix and an instant lemon pudding. With only 15 minutes to prepare, this recipe is a stunner.

While things are baking in the oven, we head out to the back porch. It is a beautiful, moderate day and we use the outdoor table to make preserved lemons.

The preserved lemon recipe I have shared before and you can find it in detail in this previous post. We have fun smushing the lemons into a jar, adding fresh lemon juice and spices.

Participants are given instructions on shaking the jar for the next 2 to 3 weeks until the lemons are preserved. Additional recipes for using preserved lemons is also provided, including my favorite pasta one.

Making Limoncello

Next up is making limoncello from scratch. Since this recipe takes a few weeks of macerating the lemon rinds in Everclear, I make it ahead of time to maximize our time in class. Providing each attendee with their own simple syrup, they can adjust the sweetness according to their own tastes.

Is limoncello better with Everclear or vodka? Everclear is a good choice because when mixed with simple sugar, it dilutes to the correct alcohol ratio of 28-32%. Vodka is a bad choice because it will lower the alcohol ratio to about 14-18% which is less than the traditional Limoncello.

In addition to traditional limoncello, I make Meyer lemon Limoncello, again a few weeks ahead of time. Providing some sips, some participants prefer it to the original limoncello.

The class concludes with taste testing the lemon tart, limoncello bundt cake and of course, limoncello. New friendships are made and everyone goes home with their bag of goodies.

Recommended Supplies

Recommendations are made regarding supplies: lemon squeezer, zester, bundt and tart pans.

The bundt pan I use for the limoncello cake I find at a local thrift store for $6.00. However, you can also find many sizes and styles online. Here’s one made by Wilton and is carbon steel now 25% off for $13.99 with 4.8 rating with over 15,000 reviews.

The best pan for the easy lemon tart is one with a removable base and a fluted edge. I made this tart in both a removable base pan and a springform pan. Clearly, the removable base tart pan works best.

As I conduct classes here at Bella Terra, I am learning so much. In researching different varieties of lemons, I discover that most store bought lemons are treated with a wax coating to protect them while shipping and to make them more visually appealing (shiny).

The wax is either beeswax (which isn’t too bad) but another is petroleum-based. So if you are using the rinds of store bought lemons, soak the lemons first in hot water and watch the wax rise to the surface. The thought of zesting wax in your recipes is a bit yucky.

I want to thank all those who donated freshly picked lemons to this class ~Sandy, Anne, Tevia, Dawn, and Steve. You are very generous! I am also very grateful to those who signed up for this class. We did have fun!