Coconut Lemon Slice – Gluten Free and extra Coconutty .

Today the wonderful father daughter painting duo of Bob and Bonnie came and oiled and sanded and patched more of our renovations. Tomorrow they refresh all the paintwork in the kitchen and laundry . I was in the mood to bake so I adulterated a favorite slice recipe to make it gluten free for Jason and tried it out on Bob and Bonnie as well. They’re still alive and kicking so it must be alright 😄
First do your prep work and organise all your ingredients.

Ingredients.
125gm butter, softened
1 cup caster sugar (I used raw)
2 teaspoons grated lemon rind
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1 cup Gluten Free self raising flour
3/4 cup of coconut flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 cup coconut milk

Preheat the oven to moderate 180 degrees C. Grease and line a 20cm x 30cm shallow tin with non stick baking paper , overhanging two opposite sides.

Beat the butter, sugar and lemon rind with electric beaters until light and creamy.

As you can see in the second picture, I softened the butter a bit too much in the microwave as it was still to hard to cream with the sugar. It cooled down as I beat it though and resumed a more normal creaminess which you can see in the following picture.

Add the egg, a little at a time, beating in well.

Mix in the shredded coconut.

Sift the flours and baking powder and fold into the mixture alternately with the lemon juice and coconut milk.

Spread the mixture evenly into the pan and bake for 30 minutes, or until firm.

Cool in the pan for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.

When cold, ice with lemon icing. This was made with about 1 1/2 cups icing sugar, a small nob of butter and lemon juice and a dash of boiling water till a spreadable consistency.

The texture is really lovely and the use of coconut flour just added to the flavour big time.
This is how far away from my kitchen side door our lemon tree is. We had to give it a rather severe crown lift during the renovations but I wasn’t about to lose it.

Bon apetit!

Lemon Curd-Quickest preserve ever!

This is my amazing lemon tree. It grows in what looks like a pitiful buckets worth of soil, clinging grimly to the side of the big granite rocks our house is perched on. It never stops producing day in, day out. It always has flowers, green lemons and ripe lemons on it all at the same time. I never water it as it gets all the runoff from rain on the rock and I imagine it is feeding off all the minerals and organic matter that comes off the rock too. Not sure what type of lemon it is but it isn’t a sweet one and has thick pithy skin on it. I’ve never made lemon curd before so thought i’d give it a go to use up a few of the lemons I get. If ever I need a lemon, I just pop out the door off the side of my kitchen to the right of this photo and pick one.

Recipe,

Grated zest and juice of 4 large juicy lemons

4 large eggs

350gm  Golden (raw) caster sugar

225gm unsalted butter, room temp and cut into lumps

1 dessertspoon cornflour (I used gluten free cornflour, real cornflour)

Whisk the eggs in a medium sized saucepan, then add the rest of the ingredients. Place over a medium heat and continue to whisk till mixture thickens. When it does, lower the heat to low and let the lemon curd simmer for a minute whilst whisking still.

Remove from heat and pour into hot sterilized jars. Seal immediatley and store in a cool dry place till needed. This all took about 10 minutes to make once everything was prepped and ready to go. So quick to make.

I used 4 one cup (250ml) capacity mason jars and it filled all to the brim.

Now all I need to do is discover some yummy recipes to use it with. 😀

Bon appetit!