SMiLes by Meg

Tag: zest

Small Batch Olive Oil Lemon Bars

Happy Valentine’s Day! Erik and I just finished a feast and I’m writing this as I’m about to slip into a food coma powered by Schitt’s Creek on the couch. We ordered cook at home hot pot and it was perfect – lots of delicious food, a fun thing to do. Highly recommend. If you’re in the DC area check it out – Fat Choi Hot Pot. Also in the Valentine’s Day trend, Erik has been talking about how much he loves lemon bars for weeks now, and I thought it was probably a good time to make him some. …

Small Batch Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

After making last week’s apple cake, and then eating apple cake with pumpkin ice cream every night for a week, I remembered the importance of small batch recipes during a pandemic. So this week, I turned to Hummingbird High’s trusty guide of small batch recipes and asked Erik which sounded the best. We landed on lemon poppy seed muffins, and the recipe was perfect – it made 4. I thought making 4 muffins would be breakfast for two days, but turns out it’s just breakfast for one day. On the plus side, I now can’t eat them everyday all week. …

Lime Curd Bars

Happy Father’s Day! My dad likes lemon meringue pie, but I’ve made that before, so I decided to try to make something in the same family. Boston is in a heat wave (it is so hot out), and I initially wanted to make something no bake. However, when I found these, they seemed perfect – quick to make, didn’t have to buy many ingredients, and in the general family of lemon squares (but lime!). Start by making the graham cracker crust. In a medium bowl, toss together the melted butter, graham cracker crumbs and sugar until the texture of wet …

Classic Blueberry Pie

Today’s recipe was both the first thing my mom wanted me to make and the last thing. She started with “please make me something with these blueberries.” Then we went down the rabbit hole of “should we make a braided bread instead?” And then we decided yes, we should definitely make a braided bread. The grocery store disagreed – no yeast to be found anywhere, except the local French bakery, which only had fresh yeast, and that seems like way more work than I wanted. So we came back to blueberry pie, and I got to play with pie stamps! …

Lemon Ice Cream Cake

This weekend, I got to do lots of fun things! I went to Brad Paisley with my dad, for our fifth annual summer country concert. I spent the day at Green Harbor with my cousins, which I missed out on for the 3rd this year. And I got to make an ice cream cake that was surprisingly simple, despite how hard it was to find sweetened condensed milk! So this cake starts with making a REALLY easy ice cream. No machine required – just whisk some ingredients together and freeze it. With an ice cream cake, you’re less concerned with …

Ginger Lime Pie

Happy Father’s Day to the best Daddy-o around! This week, because I was going out to Duxbury, I obviously had to make something for my dad. Unfortunately, I’ve already made a lot of things he likes: whoopie pies, icebox cake, half moons, lemon meringue pie… So I was in a bit of a bind trying to find something good. Then I remembered he LOVES key lime pie. I did a quick search for “lime” on my blog (because this is a recipe I feel like I should have made before), but, fortunately, hadn’t made this particular pie. I was also …

Raspberry Apple Muffins

Another of my awesome baking-related Christmas presents this year was silicon cupcake cups. This may not seem revolutionary, but they’re in some very happy colors, and I have a really bad habit of deciding to make cupcakes or muffins only to realize, once the batter is made, that I don’t have any paper cupcake cups on hand. Enter silicon baking cups – never again will I have to run to CVS only to find out that CVS doesn’t carry cupcake liners! When trying to decide what to make in my new silicon liners, I wanted to make something that I …

Spice Cake

Now that it’s January, it’s time to turn away from Christmas cookies and move on to bigger and better things – like continuing my quest to be featured on Yotam Ottolenghi’s instagram feed and using all of my Christmas presents. Those two goals come together in this week’s post: Spice Cake out of Ottolenghi’s Sweet cookbook. When I opened Sweet this week to find a recipe, I wanted something that would be baked in a loaf pan, since Sylvia, Erik’s mom, got me a beautiful yellow Emile Henry one this year (thanks!). Also because a loaf pan cake is a …

Orange Spritz Cookies

For my last in this year’s Christmas cookie series, I bring you something a little fruity to round out your cookie boxes: orange spritz cookies. Everything in my box so far had been either chocolate or butter or ginger or some other traditional warm flavor and I wanted a fruit counterpoint. Usually you can do this with some thumbprints, but I really am not a huge fan of jam cookies (other than hamantaschen). I prefer cookies that rely on the zest of a fruit. I also prefer cookies that let me use my cookie press. These checked both boxes. First, …

Cranberry Lemon Scones

Last week, I told you’d I’d give you a recipe to use with your leftover fresh cranberries. This week, I’m delivering! These scones are quick, foolproof, and wonderfully crumbly. Eat these fresh from the oven, with coffee, or for dessert with a scoop of ice cream. You really can’t go wrong.