Cookies Are Like Kisses

Things are winding down, at least for Phase I of My Life Is Hell Twice A Year, Or Once A Term. I took a writing break to bake cookies to bring along for this weekend's trip to Cold Place In The Mountains. Road trips make me hungry, as does cold air and elevation. Hence, the picture of them in a "dude, that's ghetto" tupperware. For prettier, food pornier pictures, go here and here.

My beloved Amber beat me to it, but I have been dying to make Homemade Oreos ever since I saw the recipe on Smitten Kitchen. They are the most wonderful things I have ever eaten. As soon as I took a bite, I immediately hated everything I had ever eaten prior to the Cookie of Awesomeness. It was as if a choir of angels had burst into song in my mouth. This must be what heaven tastes like, if heaven existed and you could dunk it into milk (or coffee) and bite, chew, swallow and digest it. They are wayyyy better than the chocolate mascarpone cookies I had at Breadlines in D.C. (18th and Penn), and that is saying something.

If bundt cakes are like hugs, cookies are like kisses, and these are like the ultimate makeout session of cookiedom. I hope that these cookies get me some kisses, but they are so good that really, kisses are almost unnecessary. Almost.

Homemade Oreos (Chocolate Mascarpone Cookies)

For the chocolate wafers:

1¼ cups all-purpose flour

½ cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa (yes, this matters, I got mine at Peets)

1 teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

1 to 1½ cups sugar

½ cup plus 2 tablespoons (1¼ sticks) room-temperature, unsalted butter

1 large egg

For the filling:

¼ cup sugar

8 oz Mascarpone cheese

1. Set two racks in the middle of the oven. Preheat to 375 degrees.

2. In a food processor, or bowl of an electric mixer, thoroughly mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, salt, and sugar. While pulsing, or on low speed, add the butter, and then the egg. Continue processing or mixing until dough comes together in a mass.

3. Take rounded tablespoons of batter and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet approximately 2 inches apart. With moistened hands, slightly flatten the dough. Bake for 9 minutes, rotating once for even baking. Set baking sheets on a rack to cool.

4. To make the filling, cream the mascarpone with the sugar with an electric beater until fluffy and mixed.

5. To assemble the cookies, spread the mascarpone cream evenly onto a cookie with a butter or pate knife. Sandwich together. Refrigerate to firm up and "sticken" the cream.

Keep refrigerated, although you probably won't die if you leave the cookies out for a while. But, this is a cautious food blog.

Okay, so for once Smitten Kitchen lets me down. These cookies are so sweet I feel like my teeth are wincing. Next time I will take out the 1/4 cup of granulated sugar, which is so unnecessary when you have 2/3 cups of brown sugar already. 1 1/4 cups of flour to 0.91 cups sugar doesn't sound like much (considering that most recipes call for equal amounts of sugar to flour), but these seem way too sweet for me. I'm bringing them anyway--maybe other people like sweet cookies.

Always, always distrust a recipe that proclaims that these cookies are so good that eating them would make everyone so happy that world peace would ensue:

When Dorie Greenspan included Pierre Hermé’s recipe for to-die-for chocolate cookies in her Paris Sweets cookbook, she called them Korova Cookies (Sablés Korova), after the restaurant off the Champs-Élysées for which Pierre Hermé created these cookies, not the milk bar in A Clockwork Orange. In her most recent book, she calls them World Peace Cookies, as her neighbor became convinced that a daily dose of these cookies was all that is needed to ensure planetary peace and happiness.

That is some claim for a cookie to make! Anyway, such a schmaltzy, maudlin name guarantees that the cookie is too sweet, metaphorically and literally. An ironic shame; Dorie Greenspan is such a good bakebook writer, the French generally don't like things too sweet, and I cannot imagine eating these cookies every day (the other cookies I've made, certainly).

Anyway, the recipe, with the warning that you should take out the 1/4 cup granulated sugar, or leave it in if you are inclined to the saccharine:

World Peace/Korova Cookies

Paris Sweets, Dorie Greenspan

1¼ cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I recommend Scharffenberger or Dagoba)

½ teaspoon baking soda

1 stick plus 3 tablespoons (11 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature

2/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar

¼ cup sugar

½ teaspoon fleur de sel or ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chips, or a generous ¾ cup store-bought mini chocolate chips

Sift the flour, cocoa and baking soda together.

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add both sugars, the salt and vanilla extract and beat for 2 minutes more.

Turn off the mixer. Pour in the flour, drape a kitchen towel over the stand mixer to protect yourself and your kitchen from flying flour and pulse the mixer at low speed about 5 times, a second or two each time. Take a peek — if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple of times more; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at low speed, mix for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough — for the best texture, work the dough as little as possible once the flour is added, and don’t be concerned if the dough looks a little crumbly. Toss in the chocolate pieces and mix only to incorporate.

Turn the dough out onto a work surface, gather it together and divide it in half. Working with one half at a time, shape the dough into logs that are 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate them for at least 3 hours. (The dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months. If you’ve frozen the dough, you needn’t defrost it before baking — just slice the logs into cookies and bake the cookies 1 minute longer.)

GETTING READY TO BAKE: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

Working with a sharp thin knife, slice the logs into rounds that are 1/2 inch thick. (The rounds are likely to crack as you’re cutting them — don’t be concerned, just squeeze the bits back onto each cookie.) Arrange the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving about 1 inch between them.

Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 12 minutes — they won’t look done, nor will they be firm, but that’s just the way they should be. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies rest until they are only just warm, at which point you can serve them or let them reach room temperature.

Irresponsible Picnic: Lemon-Fennel Chicken Sandwiches and Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yesterday, with some help, I escaped the library by going on an impromptu, irresponsible picnic--the best kind! We went up to a nearby park that was really beautiful, sat next to a lovely lake, watched ducks swim, and froze our bottoms while filling our bellies with Not-Turkey Sandwiches. It was very awesome.

Next time I am packing a thermos of laced hot cocoa. First I have to buy a thermos. And whatever you lace hot cocoa with.

Lemon-Fennel Chicken Sandwiches With Sauteed Peppers, Onions, Arugula, and Basil Pesto

See the recipe for basil pesto.

Ingredients for Two Sandwiches:

3 chicken thigh cutlets (or 2 chicken breasts, if you must use dry, bland, healthy white meat)

Juice of 1 lemon

1 tsp. fennel

1/4 cup of flour to dredge

Salt and pepper to taste

1/2 red bell pepper, julienned into small strips

1/2 onion, cut into thin half-rings

2 slices of swiss cheese

1 tbs. basil pesto (or more)

Handful of arugula

1/4 cup olive oil

Two ciabatta sandwich buns, split in half (or just cut up a ciabatta however you want)

Salt, pepper, and fennel up the chicken pieces on both sides. Squeeze the juice of the lemon over the chicken pieces, and allow to marinate. At least 10 minutes for light flavor, a few hours or overnight for total juiceyness and strong lemon flavor

Heat the oil in a skillet until ver hot. Dredge the chicken pieces in the flour, tap excess off. Fry in pan, 3-4 minutes each side (or more) until crisp and browned and cooked through. Remove to a plate. After cool, cut into thin slices.

Add the peppers and onions to the skillet, and sautee until soft and slightly charred.

Spread the homemade pesto on the toasted ciabatta. Arrange everything in the bread to your liking, and "sandwich" together.

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Underbake for soft, chewy cookies, bake a little longer for crispier ones. I do both.


2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1.5 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.

Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside. In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended.

Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended.

Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon. Drop cookie dough 1/4 cup* at a time onto the prepared cookie sheets. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart.

Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

* 1/4 cup cannot be right, as it made a cookie approximately 8″ across, an egregious excess by any standard. For a typically oversized cookie, use 1/8 cup.

Sage Porkchops, Yams Baked with Cranberries and Walnuts, and Cranberry-Apple Cobbler

I made this meal on the fly, literally: my plane landed last Monday at 11:30 am, I got home by 1 pm after waiting for baggage and taking the door-to-door shuttle, quickly typed up an assignment, jumped on the bus and had class from 2:20 to 5:30, then I went grocery shopping on the way home, and whipped up this meal in a couple of hours. Almost all was ready by the time The Dude came by at 8:30 pm.

It is not hard to make pork or lamb chops. The simpler, the better, and they cook up quick, making them a good weekday meal (e.g., not soups, stews, roasts). The meat should be cooked right before serving, and not completely cooked through--pink is okay, even for pork. The sides are what take a while to make, although I am not entirely sure that The Dude likes my side dishes. He never seems to finish them, and while that may ostensibly be due to a somewhat reasonable desire to limit carbs, he polishes off my desserts. This makes me wonder if I am not correct in my intuition that I am a better baker than I am a cook. In any case, for those of you that like my side dishes, the recipes:


Pan Roasted Pork Chops With Sage and Garlic

Ingredients:

Two pork chops

10-12 sage leaves

2 cloves of garlic, sliced

Freshly ground sea salt and pepper

In a large, heavy skillet, heat up 1/4 cup of olive oil until hot. Drop in about 10 sage leaves and fry until crispy, just a few minutes. Remove with slotted spoon or tongs or chopsticks and drain on paper towels. Do the same with the garlic slices.

The oil is now infused with sage and garlic. Fry the pork chops, already seasoned with salt and pepper, in the oil until well browned on both sides. The middle should be pink and not tough.

Add the sage leaves and garlic back to the pan, and the juice of one lemon, swirl everything together to form a sauce, and spoon over the plated pork chops.

Serve with these side dishes, which you've already prepared and kept warm:

Sauteed Zucchini and Yellow Squash

This is not hard. Slice up 2-3 squash, sautee in 2 tablespoons of butter until tender and browned, and grind copious amounts of sea salt and pepper over it. Grate the zest of a lemon on top. Lemon zest makes everything better.

This works really well with blue lake green beans, which are at least tasty. Also, asparagus.

Squash and other such vegetable marrows are watery, bland things, and I serve them because they are good for you and usually on sale.

Yams Baked With Cranberries and Walnuts

This would have been better with pecans, which I didn't have on hand:

Ingredients:

One and a half to two large yams, diced

1 cup of fresh cranberries

3/4 cup walnuts

1/2 cup orange juice

1/4 cup brown sugar, packed

3 tablespoons of butter, diced

Toss the yams, nuts, cranberries and brown sugar together, and put in a large baking dish. Pour the orange juice over the yams, letting it sink to the bottom. Add the diced butter on top.

Bake at 350 F in the center rack of the oven for about an hour (to an hour and a half), tossing the yams in the juice every half hour to prevent drying out and burning on top. The yams will absorb most of the orange juice, which combined with the brown sugar and butter will make a sweet, tangy sauce.

Cranberry Apple Cobbler

I must credit Daniel Goldberg, blog buddy and master of MedHumanities Blog, for this recipe. I must also wish him felcitations and acclamations for the recent birth of his daughter, Maya-chan, born on November 29 at 7 lbs. and 8 oz. According to Daniel, "she is already translating Latin into French, and has rejected 5 of the most eligible bachelors in the nursery."

No doubt, she is already a foodie as well!

The Dude and The Roomie ate this up, and The Best Friend (who happened to be in town for a day) cried delightfully that it was "sweet, nutty, tangy goodness!"

(I used two 9x6 dishes for the following, tartlet pans would be prettier):

Ingredients:

2 medium baking apples, peeled, cored, and sliced

1 cup fresh cranberries

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup chopped nuts (being from Texas, I always use pecans wherever possible, but walnuts would work fine, too)

2 eggs, lightly beaten

3/4 cup pastry flour (all-purpose flour will also work)

1/2 cup butter melted

2 teaspoons finely shredded orange peel

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease four tartlet pans and set aside. In a large bowl, mix cranberries, apple slices, 1/2 cup of the sugar, and nuts.

Spoon mixture evenly into pans; set side.

2. For topping, in a medium bowl, combine eggs, flour, melted butter, remaining 1/4 cup sugar, orange peel, vanilla, and a pinch of salt.

Stir with a fork until smooth, and spread topping over fruit mixture.

3. Bake about 30 mins or until topping is golden and fruit is tender. Cool slightly on a wire rack. Dust with confectioners sugar and serve warm.

These can be made up to 24 hrs ahead and chilled. Reheat in a 350 F oven for 15 minutes or until warm.

Amber's Bundt Cake Of Love and Joy

All bundt cakes are cakes of love and joy. A bundt cake is like a hug.

--Amber Taylor

I stole this from her blog. This remains the best chocolate cake I've made (and I've experimented with other recipes) using cocoa powder, which I use because it's cheaper per gram and I don't have a double boiler. It's the one I keep making over and over: at three dinner parties, and for dinner with The Dude. It is an awesome cake.


Amber's Bundt Cake

This is a modified version of the Old-Fashioned Chocolate Layer Cake from The New Best Recipe (modified in that I didn't have any instant coffee so I used extra cocoa instead).

Using a bundt pan instead of two round pans essentially doubled the baking time.

Preheat oven to 350 and grease pan with Baker's Joy.

12 tbsp softened unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 large room-temperature eggs

Beat butter for 30 seconds, then gradually add sugar and beat 3-5 minutes.

Add 1 egg and beat for 1 minute. Repeat for other egg.

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup + 2 tsp cocoa (2 tsp should have been powdered coffee, but I didn't have any.)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda

Whisk these together and add 1/3 of the mixture to the batter with your mixer on its lowest setting.

Then add 1/3 of a mixture of the following:

1 cup + 2 tbsp milk
2 tsp vanilla

and mix until almost blended.

Repeat for other 2/3 of dry and wet ingredients.

Mix for 15 seconds or until satiny.

Schlop into bundt pan and bake for 45 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Dust with powdered sugar.

Pear, Pecan and Cranberry Pie of Awesomeness

This is my favorite pie to make in the Fall, as it is full of autumnal ingredients, warms up the house, and is best served warm on a cold day. It's also a big hit at a dinner party. I plan to make a variation when I get my tartlet pans, which will make for pretty little pies. I lost the original recipe, so I'm making this all from memory (I've made it enough times that I can).

It takes forever to make (though maybe because I used to make dough by hand with a pastry cutter, and used to chop less efficiently), but can be made in stages. Everything can be premade (the dough, the filling), refrigerated, and put together at the last stage. If you do this all in one day, it cuts into fancy dinner making.

I used to call this a tarte in a fit of Francophilic pretension, but then I got down on France, so let us call a pie a pie. I add pastry flowers on top, making it a variation on the lattice pie. I am a jingoistic American, so all is cool.

I make a basic, flaky sweet pastry dough, jazzing it up with fresh lemon zest and a teaspoon of sugar. I recently bought a food processor, so now I put my pastry cutter and too-warm hands to rest.

I double the recipe below to get enough dough to work with. You can always freeze the extra dough (if any), or use it to make jam tarts (fancy pop tarts!) like I do.

Pastry Dough:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 stick (1/2 cup) COLD unsalted butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon lemon zest
3 to 5 tablespoons ice water

Blend together flour, butter, and salt in a bowl with your fingertips or a pastry blender (or pulse in a food processor) just until mixture resembles coarse meal with some small (roughly pea-size) butter lumps.

Drizzle 3 tablespoons ice water evenly over mixture and gently stir with a fork (or pulse) until incorporated. (Belle: I use a spray bottle to get greatest surface-area dispersal of the cold water, drizzling is for drips.)

Squeeze a small handful of dough: If it doesn't hold together, add more ice water, 1/2 tablespoon at a time, stirring (or pulsing) until incorporated.

Do not overwork dough, or pastry will be tough.

Turn out dough onto a work surface. Divide dough into 4 portions.

With heel of your hand, smear each portion once or twice in a forward motion to help distribute fat. Gather all dough together with pastry scraper.

Press into a ball, then flatten into a 5-inch disk (Belle: you will have two 5-inch disks).

Chill for an hour in the refrigerator. While that is chilling, you can make the filling:

Filling

2-3 Diced Anjou pears
1 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup chopped roasted pecans
1 tablespoon lemon zest
Juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup cognac
3 tablespoons butter


Toss the pears and cranberries in the lemon juice, sugar, and lemon zest until coated

In a big pot, melt the butter, and over low-medium heat, cook the pears and cranberries, stirring around until the pears soften a bit, about 15 minutes.

Turn up the heat a bit and add the cognac and vanilla. Cook until the alcohol burns off and the liquid reduces a bit, about 5 minutes.

Remove from heat, stir in the pecans, let cool to room temperature. While you do that, you can prepare your pie crust:

Take out the 5-inch dough disks and set out for 10 minutes (you could have done this as you were in the last stages of filling prep). Roll out one disk and line the bottom of a pie dish or your tartlet pans. Roll out the other disk and using a paring knife, cut out leaf and flower shaped bits of dough. If lazy, use cookie cutters. Put these decorative bits back into the fridge to chill.

Pour cooled pie filling into pie shell.

Arrange the decorative dough bits across the top, overlapping the edges of leaves or flowers. Press the edges together a bit to make sure they stick, or brush with egg white. Press the edges of the pie shell with the tines of a fork to seal, or do what I do and overlap more pastry leaves. Roll out some flower centers and make things pretty.

Bake everything for about 40-45 minutes at 350 F, depending on your oven, until the crust is golden.

Eat.

Apple Coffee Cake

I baked this for Larry Solum when he visited. I used a round pie dish to get high, fluffy wedges, and this added 10-15 minutes to the bake time. I tented it with foil to keep the top from getting burnt with the additional bake time.


Preheat oven to 350° and grease 9"x13" pan.

Mix together 3 cups of apples, peeled and sliced with 2 tsps of cinnamon; set aside.

Beat together the following ingredients for about 3 minutes:

3 cups flour
3 tsps baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup butter
3 eggs

Pour half of flour mixture into 9"x13" pan, top with half of the apple mixture and repeat.

Mix 1/4 cup pecans and 1/4 cup brown sugar together, sprinkle over the top.
Melt 2 Tbsps of butter and drizzle over.

Bake for 50 minutes; cool for 15 minutes.

Mix the following until smooth consistency:

3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 Tbsp softened butter
3/4 tsp vanilla
3 tsps hot water


Drizzle the glaze over the cake.

Sugar Cookies

I add the zest of Meyer lemons to these cookies to make them tastier. Icing is optional, as I use them as tea cookies. I underbake a bit to make them soft, chewy tea biscuits, or overbake to make crisp dipping cookies.

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon zest of Meyer lemons

Whisk together flour and salt in a small bowl.

Beat together butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes in a stand mixer or 6 minutes with a handheld.

Beat in egg and vanilla and zest. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture, mixing until just combined.

Form dough into 2 balls and flatten each into a 6-inch disk. Chill disks, wrapped in plastic wrap, until firm, at least 1 hour.

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F.

Roll out 1 disk of dough (keep remaining dough chilled) into an 8 1/2-inch round (1/4 inch thick) on a well-floured surface with a well-floured rolling pin. (If dough becomes too soft to roll out, rewrap in plastic and chill until firm.)

Cut out as many cookies as possible from dough with cutters and transfer to 2 ungreased large baking sheets, arranging cookies about 1 inch apart.

Bake cookies, 1 sheet at a time, until edges are golden, 10 to 12 minutes, then transfer to racks to cool completely.

Meanwhile, gather scraps and chill until dough is firm enough to reroll, 10 to 15 minutes. Make more cookies with remaining dough and scraps (reroll scraps only once) and bake on cooled baking sheets.

If using icing and coloring it, transfer 1/4 cup icing to a small bowl for each color and tint with food coloring. Spoon each color icing into a sealable bag, pressing out excess air, and snip a 1/8-inch opening in 1 bottom corner of bag. Twisting bag firmly just above icing, decoratively pipe icing onto cookies. Let icing dry completely (about 1 hour) before storing cookies.

Cooks' notes:

• Dough can be chilled up to 3 days.

• Cookies keep, layered between sheets of wax paper or parchment, in an airtight container at room temperature 1 week.

Lemon Bars and Cake

The Roomie and I found and rescued about 7 large lemons from an abandoned Minute Maid stand at the end of a baseball game in a large stadium in The City. This is what resulted from the fruit of the poisonous tree:


LEMON BARS


Shortbread Base:

1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt


Preheat oven to 350°F.

Cut butter into 1/2-inch pieces.

In a food processor process all ingredients until mixture begins to form small lumps.

Sprinkle mixture into a 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan and with a metal spatula press evenly onto bottom.

Bake shortbread in middle of oven until golden, about 20 minutes.

While shortbread is baking, prepare topping.


I doubled the recipe for the lemon curd and add lemon zest to make them tarter and juicier bars.

Lemon Curd:

6 large eggs
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1.5 cups fresh lemon juice
Zest of half the lemons
1/2 cup all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons confectioners' sugar


Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a bowl whisk together eggs and granulated sugar until combined well and stir in lemon juice and flour.

Pour lemon mixture over hot shortbread.

Reduce oven temperature to 300°F. and bake confection in middle of oven until set, about 30 minutes.

Cool completely in pan and cut into 24 bars.

Bar cookies keep, covered and chilled, 3 days. Sift confectioners' sugar over bars before serving.


LEMON POUND CAKE

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup granulated white sugar
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Zest of 1 large lemon
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice


Icing:
1 cup confectioners' (powdered or icing) sugar, sifted
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) and place rack in the center of the oven.

Spray bundt pan with Baker's Joy. Set aside.

With an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy and pale in color (about 3 minutes).

Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

Beat in the vanilla extract and lemon zest.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt and then add to the batter along with the lemon juice. Mix only until incorporated.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the top.

Bake about 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Place on a wire rack to cool, then gently remove the sides of the pan.

For the icing, combine the sifted confectioners' sugar with the 2 tablespoons lemon juice. (You want the icing to be thicker than a glaze but still thin enough that it will just run over the sides of the cake.

If not the right consistency add more lemon juice or powdered sugar, accordingly.)

Frost the top of the cake, allowing the icing to drip down the sides.

Let the icing set before covering.

This cake will keep for several days in an airtight container.