Lemon Meringue Bites (gluten-free)

I split this one with Pop before dinner. It didn't spoil our appetites at all.

This time of year is the big birthday season, in our family (we have a LOT of Aries' babies, if you're into astrology). As such, the first thing on the agenda is always the birthday cake (for which I have already produced a couple, and will have another constructed, this coming Saturday) …or, in Pop's case, as you may recall, the birthday pie.

I used to enjoy the Bat's divine lemon meringue pie, myself. And then I found out I had that little problem with wheat. So Pop's favorite dessert – and mine – was no longer on my menu. Seriously. Even with the many varieties of GF flours on the market, it just didn't work, because one of us would be left unhappy.

Or so I thought.

This week, I stumbled across a recipe for gluten-free lemon squares in a King Arthur Flour's email, and realized that I could very easily adapt the nut flour shortbread crust to our "ancient family secret" pie recipe. And, since this was an experiment, and I really can't eat a whole pie by myself, I had to spend some time re-figuring the structure and time on this project.

As luck would have it, our kitchen is stocked with several different types of baking pans, among them a mini-cheesecake tin I bought for myself a couple of years ago and had thus far only used for brownie bites. It really makes removing treats from those little wells so easy!

A few things for me to consider, the next time I make these (and I will be doing so fairly frequently, now) :

1. The wells in the mini-cheesecake tin are a little over 4 centimeters deep, and this dough, while tender, is fairly sturdy. I could make the reservoir in the cookie even deeper than I did (they ended up being halfway up, or roughly 2 cm). I like the flavor of the cookie, though, and, with a strong citrus curd, it's not a bad idea to keep it almost effectively a "thumbprint tart". If I do decide to press them to accommodate more curd, I'll break out the wooden tart/tassies press instead of letting my thumbnails interfere in the process. That way, I'll easily produce 12 tartlets, instead of the nine I got this time.

2. In making the meringue, I'll add about 1/4 teaspoon lemon juice, and a little zest, too. I accidentally spilled at least a full teaspoon of juice into my egg whites (Captain Coordination strikes again!), and, rather than waste them, I gave it a whirl. The meringue tasted amazing, but, unsurprisingly, fell almost immediately after it came out of the oven, becoming gooier and a spot tougher. However, I've used a small amount of citrus juice before, in making meringue cookies, and, for three egg whites, a hint (1/4 tsp, added in near the end of beating the egg whites & before adding the sugar) is all I need as a substitute for the cream of tartar (to which I am very allergic).

3. Use a wire cheese cutter to slice butter into half-centimeter cubes before tossing them into the freezer for a really good chill.

4. It is possible to make these little bite-sized treats using only the mini-cheesecake pan, but I found that the cookie cups held up very nicely outside the pan, and took on a more attractive hue when browning the meringue. Plus, it's easier to hand-clean the pan elements if there's no meringue baked on.

5. Always make more lemon curd than you think you're going to need. Not that you'll actually need it, but who doesn't want a little custard cup of lemony heaven once in a while?

That pretty curd is Meyer lemon, this time.

Here is the recipe, as I attempted to work it today:

Lemon Meringue Bites (gluten-free)

Ingredients: 

cookie shell:
6 Tablespoons butter, diced and hard-chilled
2 cups blanched almond flour (or fine-ground almond meal)
6 Tablespoons sugar
3 Tablespoons corn starch
1/4 teaspoon salt
finely grated zest of 1 small lemon

filling: 
3 egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar
grated zest of 1 small lemon
1/3 cup lemon juice
2 Tablespoons butter
2 Tablespoons corn starch
pinch salt
1 1/4 cups boiling water


meringue:

3 egg whites
6 Tablespoons sugar
zest of 1 small lemon
pinch salt



Directions:

Preheat oven to 350º F.

Lightly butter the wells of your baking tin.

Make the shortbread cookie shells: In a small mixing bowl, whisk together all the ingredients for the cookie shell except the butter. When your dry ingredients are thoroughly mixed, add in the mostly-frozen butter cubes and work into dough using a pastry blender or your fingers. Don't overwork it, but be sure that there are no large clumps of butter in the mixture. It will resemble coarse, moist sand when it is ready.

Fill each cup in the baking tin with the loose mixture, then proceed to press it against the sides and bottom of the cup (yay! building sand castles in the kitchen!).

Place in oven, bake for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown.

Remove from oven, allow to cool completely in the pan on a cooling rack.

When the cups are cooled, remove them carefully from the pan, place on a cookie sheet or another baking dish.

While the cookies are cooling, make the filling and the meringue.


Make the lemon curd: Prepare a double boiler (or, if you don't have one, improvise one by resting a heat-proof bowl over a saucepan with about an inch of room for the water beneath it). In a medium mixing bowl, beat egg yolks thoroughly by hand. Add in all other ingredients except the water. Mix completely.

Add in the boiling water, pour the mixture into the top of the double boiler, and stir over simmering water until it begins to thicken. Allow to cook another 10 minutes, until completely thick.

Fill each cookie cup with curd. If there is any left over, pour (or scoop, as the case may be) into a custard cup, and save that for later misconduct.

Prepare the meringue: If you were energy-conscious and turned your oven off while the cookies were cooling, re-heat the oven to 350º F.

In a small mixing bowl which has been cleaned thoroughly to make sure there is no residual oil in it, beat egg whites on medium speed until soft peaks begin to form. Add in lemon juice while the mixer is still running, then gradually add in the sugar. When the eggs become glossy and medium-soft peaks can be formed, fold in the lemon zest. At this point, you can scoop the meringue into a pastry bag and form pretty designs on top of your cups, or you can go random with a spoon, the way I prefer.

Meringue in dollops. Lots of dollops.

Waste not, want not. Leftover lemon curd is fine alone, or with a pretty leftover meringue topping.

Bake at 350º F for 15 minutes, or until golden-browned.

Remove from oven, allow to cool completely (cover & chill overnight if you think you can leave them alone that long).

Ain't misbehavin'. Savin' my curd for lunch.

Sorry about the color. Kitchen table lighting doesn't do the warm golden meringue tips justice, especially on a green dish. But it was what was at hand as the crowd started arriving.

Snowflakes In July

There was this lemonade....

They look naughty, don't they? They probably are…but who cares?

Well, really, there was this can of frozen lemonade concentrate. It sat in the back of the freezer, calling out my name. But the weather has been surprisingly cool, for July, so I haven't felt justified in taking up space in the refrigerator with a half-gallon jug of a beverage we'd all just sip at for the next week, so I needed another excuse.

Plus, I hadn't tried anything new in the kitchen since the old fogeys got back from their early summer gadabout, almost two weeks ago.

Needless to say, I needed to bake some lemonade. It was as simple as that.

I found this recipe, not too long ago, and it cried out for a little gluten-free treatment.

The recipe refers to them as moist, and I will give them that, but in using gluten-free flour, no matter what you do, the nature of the cookie is likely to change slightly. There is probably a way to make them gooey and gluten-free at the same time, but today was not the day to spend an extra six hours and five bags of flour trying to find it. We had family coming for supper, and I didn't need to have the kitchen in chaos right before they arrived.

I worked with Pamela's All-Purpose Artisan Blend (bought via the famous largest internet retailer), this time, and it created lovely, tender treats which melted in my mouth. As I work things out, I find I like their flour almost as much as I like King Arthur's Gluten Free…actually, I think I like it more because I don't have to add xanthan gum to make it hold together the way a regular wheat-based flour will. It's already in Pamela's blend. 

Also, slightly less money.

At any rate, these were a lovely, light dessert for the crowd.

Seriously.

Like snowflakes. In July.

They look like dirty little snowballs, but melt like snowflakes. 

Lemonade Snowflakes

Ingredients:

For the cookies:

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 large eggs

3 cups gluten-free all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/3 cup frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed and strained

Fresh zest of one lemon, finely grated (optional)

For the glaze: 

1/2 cup frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed

fresh zest of 1/2 lemon, finely grated (optional)

sugar for dusting (you can use powdered, colored, or other decorative sugar if you like. I just enjoy the look of frost on the cookie tops, with the plain granulated sugar)

Directions:

Arrange oven racks near center  of oven.

Preheat oven to 400º F

In a medium or large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Add in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour and soda.

With mixer at low speed, alternate adding in the flour mixture and the lemonade concentrate, until it is all completely mixed together. You may need to stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl a couple of times in the process.

Scoop by approximate teaspoonfuls onto an ungreased baking sheet. (I used a #60 portioner – a 2 tsp scoop. If you do the same, be prepared with a bowl of hot water to dip it occasionally, to help the dough release. It will not adversely affect the flavor or texture of the GF cookies.)

Bake for 8 minutes. 

While the cookies are baking, arrange parchment, foil, or other "dribble-catcher" layer beneath your cooling racks.

Remove cookies from oven. Using spatula, transfer cookies from baking sheets to cooling rack.

While they are still warm, brush cookies generously with remaining lemonade concentrate, then dust with sugar. 

May be served warm, or refrigerated for maximum summer lemonade chill effect.

Makes about 70 bite-sized cookies.

I can't imagine who stole that cookie from the back row…she said all innocently.

The Anniversary Cake, with Tangy Lemon Cream Syrup and Candied Lemon Peel

It's a challenge, sometimes, for a rookie gluten-free cook to find enough variety in desserts that others will also enjoy. There's too big a temptation to, after discovering one treat which is a success, not mess with it any more, and just do small (or no) variations on it, ever after.

I probably could have done that with the chocolate sponge cake.  But this month marks the golden anniversary of the marriage of two very special people our family chose to include (and, more importantly, they chose to include us in theirs). Therefore, I needed to go a little outside my comfort zone.

Besides, we're also having the lemon meringue pie as a birthday cake for Pop at the same dinner, and a chocolate cake for another birthday in a couple more weeks, so I feel more than justified in making a nice, light, citrus-y cake.

So here I am, doing a variation on fridge cakes.

It starts, of course, with cake. The recipe I chose to do a riff on calls for a couple of store-bought pound cakes, which, of course, as a wheat-intolerant individual, I can not do. And, since my last project, only a week ago, involved a basic GF yellow cake, I was loath to go there again so soon. But I did have a very nice GF angel food cake recipe, and a couple dozen fresh large eggs in the kitchen, so, there, indeed, I went. Due to another of my peculiar allergies, though, where the linked recipe calls for cream of tartar, I needed to substitute a teaspoon of cider vinegar early in the whipping process, and add  a little extra lemon juice, as well. I also used the full amount of vanilla extract (powdered rather than the liquid.  I didn't want to wet the batter too much), since I like the combination of lemon and vanilla… just because.

When the cake was baked, completely cooled, and removed from its tube pan, I popped it in the freezer overnight, because it's easier to slice into layers when it's frozen (I suppose one could make angel food layers, and not worry about slicing a cake before frosting it, but the shallower the pan, the less light and airy the angel food seems to turn out, so, at minimum, bake it as deep loaves and turn this into a trifle by cutting it into chunks before slathering on the filling).

Gluten-free and fluffy as a nimbus cloud.

Once the cake is prepared, stage two – the garnish and the filling – must commence.

I include them both in the same stage, because they both involve lemons, and you will likely need the juice from one to complete the other, so plan accordingly.

Begin a day ahead, by making candied lemon peels:

 

Candied Lemon Peels 

Ingredients: 

4 lemons, washed carefully

2 cups water, plus more for blanching

2 cups granulated sugar

2/3 cups extra fine (bartender's) sugar* 

Directions:  

Using a vegetable peeler, remove the zest from the lemons in wide strips, being careful to avoid taking off the bitter white pith at the same time (if you do get pith'd on, you can take a sharp knife and slice or scrape it off when you're done peeling all the lemons). 

With a sharp knife, slice the zest lengthwise, in narrow julienne strips, about 1/8 inch across – or thinner.  

Fill a 2-quart saucepan HALFWAY with water, put the peels into the water, and bring to a boil on medium heat, reduce temperature and simmer 15 minutes. 

Drain peel in a sieve and rinse thoroughly. Carefully rinse out the saucepan to remove residue, return to stove containing 2 cups water, 2 cups granulated sugar, and bring to a boil at high heat, stirring constantly until the sugar is completely dissolved. When syrup boils, reduce heat to simmer and add lemon peels. Continue to simmer 15 minutes, or until peels turn translucent. 

While peels simmer, line a jelly roll pan (cookie sheet with sides) with nonstick parchment (or waxed paper, if that's what you have). 

When peel is cooked to transparency, remove peel from syrup using a slotted spoon, so the syrup will drain back into the pan. Arrange peel in a single layer across the parchment. Allow to cool to room temperature. 

Cover with extra fine sugar, turning with a fork (or, if you're like me, with the nearest set of chopsticks) until all sides of each strip of zest is completely sugar-coated. Transfer to a clean sheet of parchment and allow to dry about an hour, then store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week.

Then start making the Tangy Lemon Cream Syrup.

The lemon cream syrup was fairly simple: lemon juice, lemon zest, and sweetened condensed milk. I made my own sweetened condensed milk,






so it came out a little darker, an odder color than if I'd used the store-boughten cans, but it also had a slightly richer flavor and texture to start. But if you don't have all afternoon to simmer a pot of milk and sugar down to a thick goo, just go get a couple of cans of the stuff. Then collect the zest of at least a couple of lemons before you cut and juice them. And, you're going to need a few lemons – I made a double batch, and ended up needing six medium-large, very juicy lemons to make my pint-and-change of lemony syrup.

Tangy Lemon Cream Syrup 

Ingredients: 

1 cup sweetened condensed milk†

1/2 cup lemon juice, strained well

1 Tablespoon fresh very finely grated lemon zest

Directions:  

Stir ingredients together. Cover tightly, place in refrigerator at least an hour (best if allowed to stand overnight). 

Stir. Pour over cake, waffles, pancakes, or spoon. 

Top with whipped cream topping (optional)

Once the syrup was made, I sliced the cake in half crosswise, so I had two giant angel food doughnuts, and I slathered a very generous amount of the syrup between the layers (thicker toward the center hole), then restacked the cake, covered it with my Stabilized Whipped Cream frosting, and packed it to go to our feast.

As the cake was cut, each serving then received another generous drizzling of the tangy syrup, then was garnished with several curls of the candied lemon zest.

I will likely assemble this combination again, sometime soon. I suppose I could also pair it up with some fresh berries, instead of the candied zest (or alongside it. I am the sort to be greedy).

*If you don't have extra-fine sugar, you can make your own by running regular granulated sugar through the food processor for 3 to 5 minutes, until it's really fine. Don't take the lid off the processor until the dust settles, though.

† Because I have several projects coming due this next two weeks, I made several batches of sweetened condensed milk, including this one, using coconut milk.

Yum!

Recipe Card: Lemon Squares

Every busy cook/baker/chef has a collection of favorite recipes. Back in the day, we wimmenfolk had boxes or books in which we tucked cards and cut-out pages from trusted sources, as well as, occasionally, from the pages of newspapers or magazines. These days, with so many of us living in limited spaces, or living a transient existence, it's hard to keep amassing those recipe cards, so we turn to the new media – to blogs, for example. 

Still, there are some of us who live the life of transition. The Bat and I, even having divested ourselves of several hundred lovely cookbooks (donated to the local Friends of the Library, for loan or sale as they saw fit), still have several hundred hard-copy volumes in our collection. And, even with all that, the treasure is not actually any particular book, but the stuff we wrote down for our own regular (mostly seasonal) use. I filled three cheap blank books with my tightest scrawls, so as to avoid losing family recipes.

The Bat had a little spiral notebook of cards for her most popular cookies. Somehow, it spent three years in purgatory, beyond our reach, beyond our ability to find it.

Then, in trying to fiddle with an electrical plug behind a six-foot bookcase, I happened upon that old spiral notecard book. Before I handed her treasure over to her, though, I took a few snapshots, so we'd have the recipes on record the next time disaster strikes...and it will. It always does.

I reckon I shouldn't publish all of them in one blog post, though, because then, I will have lost only a single small element when I screw something up online...and I will. I always do.

It's how I learn.

Since the cards are in Battish kitchen English (aka Mom's shorthand), as I post each one, I'll try to make sure to fill in any communication gaps there might be. Any explanatory stuff [in brackets] is my own, not from the Bat, so keep any negative comments about that directed at the snarky editor, not her long-suffering kitchen instructor.

So, without any further fuss, I present (wait. Play a fanfare in your head. This is worthy of a fuss)....

Lemon Squares

In case the picture isn't all that clear for you, the recipe goes like this:

Ingredients for cookie base:*

3 c. flour [that would be all-purpose flour]

1 1/2 c. shortening [I like using butter, but you can use your favorite solid shortening, if you lean that way]

3/4 c. conf. sugar [confectioner's, or powdered sugar]

Directions for cookie base:

Preheat oven to 350º F.

Blend well, and press into jelly roll pan [cookie sheet with sides, approx. 13"x18"]

Bake 20 minutes. 

[While that is baking – about halfway through this baking process – assemble the filling.]

Ingredients for filling:

6 eggs [large or extra large]

3 c. granulated sugar

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

3/4 tsp. salt

6 Tbs. lemon juice

Directions for filling:

Beat together well [until slightly frothy. If you're energetic, this can be done by hand. If you're me, a regular hand-held mixer will take only a very short time]

Pour over crust & bake 20-25 [minutes] more. DO NOT overbake. Filling puffs while baking but flattens upon cooling. 

[Many other recipes recommend lightly dusting the top with powdered sugar. The Bat & I like our lemon bars with a tad less sweetness, a little more zip.]

*I like to add finely grated zest of one lemon to the dough for the base. But if you're not inclined to do so, it's still not a bad idea to zest the lemons before juicing them, then store that zest in an airtight container in your freezer, for some future recipe. It always seems, to me, to be a pity to waste something as lovely and aromatic as citrus peels.

Gitchi gitchi ya ya Mixed Citrus and Honey Marmalade

There was this sale, you see…

One of the local stores had lemons, limes, and other citrus fruits marked at a price I could by no means resist. And, yet, there is no way on God's green earth that I could eat a baker's dozen of lemons, three pounds of key limes, three pounds of Clementines, or two pounds of standard limes.

At least, not as they were.

So I started experimenting with putting them by. Some of the processes will take a month or more to establish whether or not they were successful (I'm pickling some key limes, for the fun of it, with a little sliced chili pepper and a mess of salt, and tomorrow I start in on another option for limes). But today, I made marmalade.

Yes, marmalade.

Not your typical marmalade, either.  I used some wild honey and mixed my fruits until I had an entertaining blend of flavors and colors. I suppose, if you wanted to, you could do this with one single variety of citrus fruit (maybe Meyer lemons). But I went with what I had and what I had a craving for.

And it wasn't until I was completely finished with the process of canning the stuff and sitting down to supper that the LaBelle song bubbled up from deeeeep inside me.




Still, I have to say, Patti LaBelle notwithstanding, the day was a success.


I made jellied citrus. So. There.

It may even become Christmas prezzies, if I'm in a really good mood, come winter.

But the recipe went something like this:



Mixed Citrus and Honey Marmalade

Ingredients:

8 cups citrus fruits (my blend was 6 cups thin-skinned lemons, 1 cup tangerines, 1 cup key limes). This amounts to, roughly, 14 lemons, 4 "cuties" tangerines, and 10 key limes, but that will vary according to the size of your fruits. You're likely to need a little more than 3 lbs of whatever fruit you choose.
2 cups strong honey something like wild honey or sorghum honey.  I went wild.
1 1/2 cups water
4 cups sugar
2 packets liquid pectin (do not use powder!!!!!)

jelly jars to contain approximately 20 cups

Directions:

Carefully wash fruit (with a vegetable wash, not soap. If you don't have veggie wash, rinse carefully, allow to soak for a few hours or overnight, drain away water, rinse, and allow them to soak as you prepare everything else.

Give your jars a hot bath and soak the flat lids in simmering water until you need them. I have a good dishwasher with hot-bath setting, so I prepped the jars in that, and put the lids in a small saucepan, separated, covered with simmering water.

Trim away stem ends and slice lemons* into small sections, approximately 1 centimeter wide and very thin (but not paper-thin). I found the easiest way to do this was to cut the lemon in half lengthwise (cutting through from blossom to stem end), then cut each half into 4 equal lengthwise wedges, and finally slice crosswise into small, thin bits. You will want a very sharp knife to do this well.

When all your lemons have been cut, combine them with honey, sugar, and water in a large (at least 5 quart), nonreactive saucepan. Stir well, bring to boil, immediately reduce heat and simmer very low for 30 minutes (overheating amplifies the bitterness of the skins).

Prepare work surface for hawtness of a traditional kind while this is simmering. If you are a little sloppy, the way I am, put out a large jelly roll pan (cookie sheet with walls) on a flat surface near the stove. Have ready your ladle, funnel, lid rings, and tongs (for fishing out lid flats from hot bath and for fishing jars out of hot bath, if necessary).

Add in liquid pectin, bring to low boil for 5 minutes, remove from heat immediately. Working quickly, ladle into jars, putting lids & rings on each one as you go, and turning upside-down to help them seal. When they are sufficiently cooled, turn them right-side-up and wash any stickiness away before labeling them. (You will know they are sealed if you press the center of the lid and it doesn't "pop" or otherwise make a noise.)

Enjoy a jar or two at a later date, or, if you must, share with loved ones, but when I make jellies, I always make sure one jar "accidentally" fails to seal, so I can have it for dessert that evening. This can be accomplished by re-using a flat lid, or by using a jar & lid from some store-bought preserved food (I don't recommend using one which used to hold peppers, though, unless you really want that added flavor in your first bite of this marmalade).


*For the sake of brevity, I am calling all citrus "lemons" at this point. If you're using others, go ahead and pretend I've included the rest of them in the description.

Pop's Birthday Lemon Meringue Pie

Our family likes desserts of all sorts, but there is one sweet which reigns supreme, especially with my father, and that sugary delight, to the shock of some, is not cake. Indeed, with that in mind, for more than four decades, Pop has been treated on his birthday to one particular cake alternative.

He gets lemon meringue pie.

He gets his special lemon meringue pie.

Bat says she got the original from a women's magazine, back about the time I was starting kindergarten, so that puts it at the mid-1960s. Since then, she's made a few alterations, to keep everybody happy with this springtime treat.




Pop's Birthday Lemon Meringue Pie

Pastry crust

Ingredients:

1 large egg yolk
2 Tablespoons ice water
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
pinch salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
1 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 Tablespoons sugar

Directions:

Beat yolk lightly and add ice water, lemon juice, and salt. Cut or work butter into flour, then add, along with sugar, to the egg mixture. Work ingredients together until they form a soft ball. Wrap in plastic and allow to chill in refrigerator at least 1/2 hour.

Remove from fridge, pat into 9" pie pan, flan ring, or springform pan. Place sheet of foil inside shell and fill with weights (beans or rice will do if you don't have ceramic pellets for the purpose). Bake in moderate oven (350º F) for 25 minutes.


Filling

Ingredients: 

6 egg yolks
1 1/2 cups sugar
grated rind of one lemon (about 1 Tablespoon)
1/2 cup lemon juice

3 Tablespoons butter
4 Tablespoons corn starch
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups boiling water

Directions: 

Beat egg yolks well, add remaining ingredients except boiling water, and beat again thoroughly. Combine with boiling water and pour into top of double boiler. Cook over hot water until the mixture thickens , then allow to cook 5 to 10 minutes longer over simmering water.

Pour into baked shell.

 

 Top with meringue.


Meringue

Ingredients:

6 egg whites
pinch salt
12 Tablespoons sugar

Directions:

Beat egg whites until they form soft peaks. Add cream of tartar and salt, continue to beat until whites are stiff but not dry. Add sugar, a little at a time, beating in thoroughly. Spread meringue over surface of the pie completely, including the edge of the crust. (If you want to keep the meringue from weeping, and would like a slightly drier meringue, you may wish to add 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar, or 1 teaspoon vinegar and 2 teaspoons corn starch).



 Bake in moderate oven (350º F) 15 to 18 minutes, until the peaks are delicate light (golden) brown.

Serve room temperature or chilled.

 If there are leftovers (it is to laugh!), keep refrigerated.

Update: finally realized I had not listed tha amount of lemon juice required. It would have made an amazingly bland filling, without the stuff...

Lazy Vegan's Lemon Sherbet

Many of my friends and I are a bit on the lactose intolerant side, and with other allergies, to boot.  Several other friends are vegans or vegetarians.  This  does, on occasion, make cooking for the gang a bit challenging.  However, I did find a dessert everybody seems to be happy with – including the lazy chef!

Technically, it's neither sherbet nor sorbet nor ice cream nor gelato... well, it comes close to a gelato, if you go by the literal translation, which simply means "frozen".  But there's no egg, no milk, no cream, no fuss.  There is only a half a large can of frozen lemonade mix and two cans of coconut milk.  That's it.  No more.

I made a couple of batches of this yesterday, with the help of my ten-year-old friend, and she agreed it was not only easy, but tasty as heck.  Fair warning, though, coconut milk is not cheap. Two batches means two cans, currently at $3.98 apiece, so the double batch I made ended up being about $16 per half gallon.  Still, it's worth it, once in a while.

The sherbet goes like this:

Lazy Vegan's Lemon Sherbet

Ingredients:

2 cans (approx. 14 ounces each) fine quality coconut milk

1 cup frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed

Directions: 

Shake cans of coconut milk thoroughly before opening.  In a medium bowl, whisk together all ingredients.  Allow to chill in refrigerator about 15 minutes.  Pour into ice cream freezer, chill as your freezer directs, until the consistency of a very thick milkshake.  Put into its own container, place in deepfreeze.

See, now, wasn't that easy?

If you don't have an ice cream freezer, you can put it into the deepfreeze, then, every 15 minutes to half hour, take it out, stir it, until it becomes too thick to stir, then store until serving.

If it has been freezing longer than an hour or two, you will need to allow it to sit out for about 15 minutes before trying to serve, unless you cheat.*

* For the adult version, I like adding a couple tablespoons of light rum.  It doesn't make much of a difference in the flavor, but it does make it a little bit of soft-serve consistency.