Meyer Lemon Cake

Amanda Hesser introduced me (and Brooke and Melodee) to Meyer lemons about seven years ago when we first read Cooking for Mr Latte, a fun book with short chapters about "a food lover's courtship" and recipes at the end of each chapter. She waxed pretty eloquent about how good they are.

But the thing is, Meyer lemons are not exactly common in Montana. So we'd never gotten to try one...until now. I was at Albertsons the other day and found a whole bag of them, so I couldn't pass them up. (Fortunately they were a reasonable price, too, although I think I would have bought them anyway.)

Melodee's birthday is this month, so my excuse to use up a bunch of Meyer lemons was a birthday cake. I found this Meyer lemon cake recipe and gave it a try on Saturday. And it was good! (How can you go wrong with a recipe that calls for not just zest and juice in the batter, but also a lemon syrup over the top and then a lemony glaze?)  The cake texture actually came out quite spongey - almost like a British pudding - but that might have been because I didn't have heavy cream? And the flavor...I liked the flavor a lot, but "lemony" is not the first word that comes to mind to describe it. A Meyer lemon is a cross between a lemon and some kind of orange, and you can definitely taste the orange sweetness much more than any lemon sourness. So it actually wasn't what I expected, even though I know it was supposed to be sweet. But still excellent and well worth trying after a seven-year wait.

I've got two Meyer lemons left and now am trying to think of the best way to use them. Perhaps muffins? I don't have time for anything too complicated, but I want to experiment more with this flavor!