Community Kitchen

Congratulations to Canada for all the “Gold” in the Olympic and to the Paralympics! What a thrill and national pride! Way to go, Canada! We missed all the Olympic fervor due to our South America Cruise and got delayed coming home due to Santiago, Chile ‘s earthquake. Spring is here and here are two recipes sent in by Alice Bradley — so lemony and refreshingly good! Thanks, Alice!

LEMON CAKE

1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
3 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup buttermilk
2 Tbsp. grated lemon zest
1 Tbsp. lemon extract
Grease a 10” tube pan and dust with flour and shake out excess.
Preheat oven to 350 degree.
Cream together butter and sugar.
Beat in eggs, one at a time, beat well between additions.
Sift flour with baking powder, baking soda and salt.
Beat in the dry ingredients alternating with the buttermilk using 4 additions of dry ingredients and 3 of buttermilk, ending with dry ingredients.
Add the lemon rind and the extract.
Spoon into the prepared tube pan, smooth the surface and bake for 1 hour.
Let cool for 10 minutes, turn onto rack .

GLAZE: 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice mixed with 3/4 cup sugar. ICING: 1/4 cup soft butter, beaten with 1-1/2 icing sugar and 3 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice.

HEALTHY BANANA PINEAPPLE MUFFINS

3 cups flour (white or half whole wheat)
3 tsp. baking powder
3 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1-1/2 cup wheat germ
1-1/2 cup natural bran
3 eggs
3/4 plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1-1/2 cups mashed banana
1-1/2 cups crushed pineapple, slightly drained
2 tsp. vanilla
Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, wheat germ and bran. Set aside.
Beat eggs slightly, add the sugars, oil, mashed bananas, pineapple and vanilla.
Spoon into greased muffin tins or cupcake liners.
Bake at 400 degrees F for 17-20 minutes.
This recipe makes 3 dozen muffins but the batter can be kept in the fridge for several days, The baked muffins also keep well in the freezer You can also use only mashed banana and call it Banana muffins. In my February column. the Bacardi Rum Cake recipe should have read 1 box (510 g) yellow cake mix. Please correct it if you saved it and I hope you didn’t try it like I did with 8- 1/2 oz (recipe given me) It turned out half size and very dense but the taste of rum was so good we ate it to the last crumb.

HAPPY EASTER!