taste the book, 6/30

now that the book is pretty much finished, i have turned my attention to other things like my garden and making bread. however, i still have my job at the cafe to contend with and this is the perfect opportunity to put the recipes i worked on for the last 6 months on display. with that in mind, i invite you to taste the book. as long as i am capable (read that as not so busy with the volume at the cafe), i will feature a dessert from the book as a special and post about it here. first up is the lemon ice box pie, a sweet and creamy pie perfect for a hot summer day (as long as you eat it quickly!)

freshly zested lemons

lemons, juiced by hand the old fashioned way (can you cay carpal tunnel?)

egg yolks, a bunch when you make as many pies as i did

if double yolks are a good luck charm, then i am drowning in them. this last month or so, we have gotten large quantities and i have cracked as many as 12 in a day.

sorry, didn’t take photos of the next step-it was kinda boring-zzzz

mix the juice, zest and eggs into sweetened condensed milk and pour it into a cookie crumb crust. most of the time, these just go straight into the fridge to “cook” and set but the s.c.m. has been rather thin lately so i opted for a quick trip in the oven, about 7 minutes, to help them set.

let the pie chill, top it with whipped cream and white chocolate shavings. to make nice shavings, hold your knife perpendicular to the surface of the chocolate-one hand on the handle and the other on the tip of the blade and while applying light pressure, drag the knife towards you to make shavings.