We are lucky enough to have an abundance of limes in our garden, part of it due to the neighbour’s lime tree which overhangs our wall – the result is that the limes go straight into our kitchen. Luckily we have permission to pick the lovely limes, as there are too many for one family to use. On Sunday I decided to turn the lemons into dessert and I came up with a trio of lemon inspired miniature desserts on a plate. Limoncello; lemon syrup cake and lemon custard. The first two were easy to assemble: 1 liqueur glass with limoncello (which you make yourself if you have lemons or limes in your garden). For the lemon custard you use a tiny bowl; add about 5 ml lemon yoghurt (from Woolworths) and top with 5 ml custard. Decorate with a touch of cream.

A trio of lemon desserts

Lime tree

Limes

Lemon Syrup Cake

The cake takes 20 minutes to prepare:

Ingredients
1 cup flour
5 ml baking powder
2 ml bicarbonate of soda
50 g butter
125 g caster sugar
2 eggs
80 ml milk
2 tablespoons grated lemon rind

Syrup
100 g caster sugar
80 ml fresh lemon (or lime) juice

Method
Preheat the oven to 180⁰C. Grease a 20 cm springform tin.
Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and a pinch of salt.
In another bowl, beat the butter, eggs and sugar until creamy.
Fold in the flour mixture, and then stir in the milk and lemon rind.
Spoon into the tin and bake for about 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
Make holes in the top of the cake with the skewer.

Make the syrup
Put the sugar and lemon juice in a small pan and stir over a low heat until syrupy. Pour over the hot cake. Serve with fresh cream.