Polenta Lemon Muffin with Lemon Curd Filling

I'm totally into polenta since the Polenta and Ricotta Cake. Well, maybe it's not the polenta but the divine fragrance of baked honey..... MmmHmm.... whatever. Got to make good use of the bag of polenta anyway.

The original recipe uses all-purpose flour and a lemon curd recipe that has more steps than necessary. I replaced the flour with 1 cup uncooked polenta + 1/2 C unbleached all-purpose flour and used the Lemon Curd Recipe in one of my earlier posts. Didn't make any changes except I'm using organic sugar instead of natural cane sugar. The color turns out in a pretty yellow instead of the less appetizing brownish hue I had before. The ingredients listed make for 1 cup of lemon curd. You can also double the amount and save the extra for other recipes such as Lemon Curd Bar or use lemon curd as dressing for savory such as Smoked Salmon Quinoa.

For the muffin, if you don't have sour cream (as usual, I make it by mixing 1 TB lemon juice + 1 C cream) you can also use yogurt or buttermilk (I make this with 1TB lemon juice + 1 C milk). Don't expect the muffins to rise as they normally would with flour. You can use reduce polenta and increase flour if you like your muffins to rise more.

Do visit the original recipe - it's food blog by a very artistic duo. They did some fun decoration to their Meyer Lemon Cupcake with stencils: ninja monkey, skull and cross-bones, etc. Me? Just look at my vague attempt at dressing them with ricotta cheese. I'm a gourmand, you know?

Ingredients:

For filling

• 2 small eggs
• 1 lemon, zested and juiced
• 1/4 C organic sugar
• 2 TB butter

(makes 1 Cup)

1. Either use a double boiler or place one saucepan over a pan of simmering water (as shown in picture). Whisk together eggs, sugar and lemon juice until thicken.

2. Remove from heat and strain through a mesh. Stir in butter to melt. Add lemon zest and let cool slightly. The curd will thicken. Immediately cover to prevent skin from forming. Refrigerate and move on to cupcake. You can refrigerate this for up to a week.

Lemon Muffins
(makes 6 large muffins)

• 1/2 C unsalted butter
• 1 C uncooked polenta
• 1/2 C unbleached all-purpose flour
  
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 C sour cream
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 lemon, zested and juiced
• 1 C natural cane sugar
  
• 2 large eggs
• Ricotta cheese (optional)
  

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Lightly grease muffin tray.
   
2. In medium bowl, whisk together polenta, all-purpose flour, baking powder and salt. In a separate, smaller bowl, whisk sour cream, vanilla, lemon zest and juice.
   
3. In an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until light in color. Add eggs one at a time, mixing in between. On low speed, add one third of the polenta mixture, one half of the sour cream mixture, one third of the polenta, the other half of the sour cream, and the rest of the polenta. Basically, alternate dry and wet - and don't overmix.
4. Divide batter evenly among muffin tray. Bake 35 minutes, until cake tester comes out clean. Cool completely on wire rack.
5. You may either use lemon curd as filling by spooning out the muffin center, or, swirl lemon curd on top as topping. Serve with cream or ricotta cheese.
   

What else came out of boredom? - Lemon Curd (and the subsequent Lemon Bars and Smoked Salmon Quinoa)

Friends back home always wonder how I spend my time since moving to Bangkok. Apart from practicing and teaching Yoga, I spend an awful lot of time in front of the computer surfing for articles that may or may not contribute to my practice/ teaching. When my brain is jammed with too much "spiritual" and "anatomy" stuffs, I switch on to my second brain - stomach -. I feed it by painstakingly going through pages after pages, sites after sites, blogs after blogs of recipes. Most of the time, it's completely random.

Adrian once bought some smoked salmon fillets that I turned into cheesecake. I still drool when I think of the combination of baked cream cheese and Gruyere. True to the spirit of Cook from Scratch, I thought I would try smoking salmon for future needs. I gave up the idea after reading just one post. Well, let's just say I live in a one-bedroom apartment with a kitchen good for two. Anyway I was glad to have found a recipe site that uses only smoked salmon.

So, as I was reading the many subscriptions for some "champion" smoked salmon recipe contest, I found a Smoked Salmon Quinoa that uses Lemon Curd. Now, I may speak and write English pretty fluently, but still, there is a lot of terminology that are completely alien to me. Besides, I didn't grow up eating Western foods. Anyway, I decided to look it up and thought Lemon Curd not only has a nice ring to it but seems to taste good, too. Besides, I could also use the extra Lemon Curd for making Lemon Tarts! Unfortunately, due to my insistence of using natural cane sugar instead of white sugar, the Lemon curd turned out to be beige in color instead of bright yellow that would look good on a tart. Therefore, in order to "hide" the lack of visual presentation, I chose to make Lemon Bars (another "novelty" to me).

For Lemon Curd
I was dismayed with the colour of the curd and didn't want to take the picture of it. I was actually thinking of throwing it away. I'm glad I didn't.

Ingredients: (makes 1 1/2 Cup)
3 Large Eggs
Juice of 2 lemon (about 1/3 Cup)
1 Tablespoon lemon zest
3/4 granulated white sugar
4 Tablespoon butter

In a stainless steel bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, whisk together eggs, sugar and lemon juice. Stir to prevent curdling. When the mixture thickens (like sour cream), remove the bowl from heat and strain the mixture to remove lumps. Whisk the butter into the mixture to melt. Add in lemon zest and let cool.
The curd will thicken. Immediately cover it to prevent skin from forming. It can be refrigerate for up to 1 week.

For Lemon Curd Bars
This bar has a lemon tangy taste. It's a little bit hard and on the dry side. I'd imagine it going well with tea/ coffee.

Ingredients:

1 cup unsalted butter, cold and cubed
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar (I used less than 1 Cup of cane sugar)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 Cup lemon curd
2/3 cup flaked coconut (Isubstituted with dried cranberrry)
1/2 cup toasted and chopped almonds

1. Preheat oven to 190C.
2. In a large mixing bowl cream the butter with flour, sugar and baking soda. Mix until the mixture forms coarse crumb.
3. Pat 2/3 of the mixture into the bottom of one 9x13 inch baking pan. Bake at 190 C for 10 minutes. Remove and let cool slightly.
4. Spread the lemon curd over the baked layer. To the remaining 1/3 of crumb mixture add the coconut (cranberry in my case) and the almonds. Sprinkle over the top of lemon curd.
5. Lower oven temperature to 175 C and bake bars for 25 minutes or until lightly browned.
   

For Smoked Salmon Quinoa
(serves 4 big portions)

2 Cup Quinoa, cooked
4 Tablespoon basil pesto (you can buy from store or refer to my previous post)
1 Cup Parmesan
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 Cup milk
1/8 Teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1C smoked salmon

1Cup plain yogurt
2 Tablespoon lemon curd
2 teaspoon lemon zest

Prepare the yogurt lemon dressing: mix yogurt, lemon curd and zest together. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Prepare the quinoa crust: Cook quinoa according to instruction. Toss basil pesto with quinoa. Mix with 1/2Cup cheese. Press pesto quinoa onto the bottom of a 9 inch pie pan, covering sides and bottom. Set the crust at 180C for 15 minutes. Remove and set aside.




Prepare the topping: In a bowl, whisk together eggs. milk,salt and pepper. Gently fold in salmon pieces.
Pour the egg mixture over quinoa crust and bake at 180C for 40 minutes. Add the remaining 1/2 Cup cheese and bake for another 20 minutes.
Let the pie sit for 5 minutes before serving. You can either drizzle the lemon yogurt on top or serve it alongside.

We ate the leftover for breakfast few days later and it's just as flavorful as fresh.