The Last Vinaigrette

I know what you're thinking. It's just a salad dressing. What could be so good about a simple vinaigrette? There's almost nothing to it.

Enter Banyuls vinegar. Oh, you've never had it? You don't know where to find it? I thought so. That's why you were so skeptical about it. Trust me. You can thank me later. You may never be the same.

My love for Banyuls vinegar is no secret at this point. Not only have I written about it before, but I'm also a walking infomercial to anyone who will listen. At the risk of being redundant, here I go again. Banyuls is traditionally a dessert wine made from old vine Grenache in the Banyuls Sur Mer region of France. Ironically, Banyuls vinegar is a more savory vinegar than most. Comprised of 50% grenache noir, 40% grenache gris, and 10% carignane, the vinegar starts it's 5 year aging process in large tanks in a cool cellar, and is later transferred into smaller barrels and placed outside for the next 4 years. Here, it's exposed to the hot sun and cool winds of the Pyrenees, which help accelerate the aging process. The result is a nutty, slightly briney vinegar that goes with just about everything.

I've never seen Banyuls vinegar in the store, with the exception of Dean and Deluca in NYC, who carry just about everything. Never fear, Amazon is here (!) and they sell everything. Get some.

Banyuls Vinaigrette
makes about 1 1/4 cups

1/4 cup Banyuls vinegar
1/4 extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup grapeseed oil
1 Tbsp dijon mustard
1 Tbsp water
1 small shallot, minced
1 tsp salt (more or less to taste)
1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper

In a bowl, whisk together the mustard, water, and vinegar. Slowly add the oil in a steady stream, whisking constantly to emulsify. When all of the oil has been added, add shallots and season with salt and pepper. Refrigerate.

George's Limequats

This is George. George is the owner and farmer of Betty B.'s Ranch out of Ramona, California.He's been there since the late 70's and owns over 30 acres. He's only got crops on less than half of it, due to the water shortage. We first met about a year and a half ago when I was still selling my stuff at the La Jolla farmer's market. At the end of the day I'd go around and trade my leftover pastries for produce and groceries, and I stumbled upon George and his citrus. Lucky for me George has a sweet tooth and a grand daughter, too. Most grand daughters have a sweet tooth...

Here in California, it is always citrus season. There are also about 14 million citrus farmers at every market. But George is different. His passion for his craft is contagious. He is genuinely excited about his produce. I love that.

When we met, I was making yuzu tarts with fresh yuzu from a friend's garden. Yuzu is incredibly hard to find fresh, and these things were selling faster than I could make them. But I gave one to him because I knew he'd appreciate it like no other. And then he told me that soon he would have limequats. Limequats!? Yeah, limequats.



A limequat is a hybrid of a key lime and a kumquat. I grew up eating kumquats off of a friends tree. With there candy sweet tartness and edible skin, they were the perfect afternoon snack for a couple little girls that hated to have to wash up before lunch. Eventually I learned to loathe those little bastards when I had to candy a trillion of them at a time at a very busy restaurant. It wasn't the candying of them that I hated, it was how long it took to slice them paper thin and remove all of their seeds. But a LIMEquat!!! Yes, please.

George also grows orangequats. By now I'm sure that you can tell by their name what they are...a cross between an orange and a kumquat. While a limequat is about the same size as a kumquat, and orangequat is about the size of a small tangerine. Last year, with the orangequats, I made an orangequat upside down cake. In my mind's eye, it was beautiful, with it's perfect layers of thinly sliced, glistening orangequats. In reality, it was heinous looking. So heinous looking, in fact, that I didn't want to sell it. It was, however, unbelievably delicious. So I gave it out as samples to lure people in. I ended up selling the whole thing.

The limequats were the perfect garnish for my yuzu tarts. I candied them even though it brought back horrific memories of being knee deep in the weeds with kumquat slices. Nowadays, I'm doing something a little more rewarding with those candied limequats, and I suggest you do the same, if you can get your hands on some. George and his citrus can be found every Sunday at the La Jolla Farmer's Market and also up in Santa Monica a couple times a week.


Candied Limequat Mojitos
makes enough for 2

4 oz white rum
12 mint leaves
10 candied limequat slices (recipe follows)
2 Tbsp candied limequat syrup
1 oz fresh lime juice
4 oz soda water
turbinado sugar for rim of glass

Wet the rim of two glasses with a lime and dip in the turbinado sugar. Add crushed ice to each glass. In a cocktail shaker, add the mint leaves, limequat slices and syrup and lime juice. Muddle until leaves are broken. Add the rum and shake to mix. Divide between two glasses, top with soda water.

Candied Limequats

1 pint limequats, washed
1 cup water
1 1/2 cup sugar
pinch salt

Slice limequats as thin as possible, discarding the seeds. (Leaving the seeds in will make the syrup bitter.) Bring sugar, salt and water to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar. Add limequat slices. Remove from heat. Allow to cool to room temperature before refrigerating. These will keep, covered and refrigerated for a very long time.

Meyer Lemon Brown Butter Cake

I've been seriously laid up. Last month was extremely busy for me and the whole time I kept thinking...I almost wouldn't mind being sick, if it would allow me to lay around the house for a while. Uh, wrong. Insert a head full of snot, an itchy throat, and sore abdominal muscles from coughing so much, and I'd be happy to swap for the alternative.

The worst part about being sick is that just because I'm sick, it doesn't mean the rest of the world stops. And although I know that I should be in bed, drinking tea, and being generally lazy, I'm having a hard time with it; mostly because of things like a basket full of meyer lemons and a half pound of Tahitian vanilla beans showing up at my door. Yeah! Can you believe it?! I've got friends in high places. Well maybe not, but I do have friends with fruit trees and vanilla bean connections...so I've got that going for me.

While the vanilla beans can wait until I'm feeling a little better, the meyer lemons could not. I've been wanting to make a brown butter cake for quite some time now, and I thought the sweet-tartness of these particular lemons was the perfect compliment. In my opinion, often times lemon desserts are far too sweet, because the person making the dessert is perhaps trying to cover up what makes a lemon so, uh, lemony...the sourness. The nuttiness of the brown butter in this cake coupled with the distinct flavor of meyer lemons, is the perfect combination for a not too sweet, moist little gem of a cake. Let's get started.

The inspiration for this recipe came from Susan G. Purdy's book A Piece of Cake, which very well may be the best $2 purchase I've ever made. I first discovered this book when my friend Sharon, an amazing pastry chef, served up a blueberry molasses cake that she had found amongst the hundreds of cake recipes that Ms. Purdy's friends were kind enough to share with her for the writing of this book. It was so delicious, I wanted to see the book. She too had bought the now out-of-print book for about $2. Run my friends, don't walk, to your computers to see if Amazon still carries this little treasure.

I've made the Lemon Tea Cake many times, and it has never dissapointed. Almost everyone that tried it said it reminded them of something their grandma used to make. Perfect! That's what I was going for. I like to bake this in 6 mini bundt cake pans. (I got mine at Michael's in the baking section.)After they're baked, and still hot, they're glazed with a hot mixture of sugar, lemon juice and a ton of zest. Then they're finshed with a powdered sugar and lemon glaze. These glazes are responsible for the almost donut like texture of these little cakes.

Brown Butter Meyer Lemon Cake
Adapted from A Piece of Cake, By Susan G. Purdy

1 cup sliced almonds, toasted (4 oz)
1 cup superfine sugar (7 oz)
1 1/2 cup cake flour (6 1/4 oz)
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
6 Tbsp (3 1/4 oz) butter*see note about brown butter
2 large eggs, room temperature
4 tsp meyer lemon zest
2 Tbsp meyer lemon juice
7 Tbsp buttermilk, room temperature

Hot Lemon Glaze
1/3 cup (2 1/4 oz) sugar
1 Tbsp meyer lemon zest
5 Tbsp meyer lemon juice

Lemon Icing
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 1/2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp almmond extract

*To brown the butter: Begin with 5 oz (1 stick + 1 Tbsp) of butter. On medium heat, cook butter until all of the milk solids have fallen to the bottom of the pan and caramelized, producing a medium brown, nutty butter. Strain through a fine mesh sieve lined with cheesecloth or a coffee filter. You should now have about 6 Tbsp butter. Chill until the butter is about room temperature. If it gets too cold let it sit out for a couple minutes.

For the cake:

Butter and flour the mini bundt pans or a 9x5 loaf pan.

Chop nuts in a food proccessor with 3 Tbsp of the sugar until very fine. Set aside.
Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the brown butter and remaining sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time. Add the lemon juice and zest. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. With the mixer on low, alternatley add the flour mixture and the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Mix well, add nuts and finish by hand.

Divide evenly amongst the prepared pans and bake 35 minutes for mini bundts or 45 minutes for 9x5. Check with a cake tester.

For the glaze:
Heat together the juice, zest, and sugar until sugar is dissolved. Reheat before using.

As soon as the cakes come out of the oven, invert them onto a wire rack. Reheat the glaze, and drizzle over the tops of the cakes. Wait a second for the glaze to penatrate, then repeat, using all of the glaze.

For the lemon icing:
Stir together lemon juice and powdered sugar. While the cakes are still slightly warm, drizzle a little icng on each cake.

To freeze the cakes, wait until they are completly cool and wrap them in plastic wrap.