Lemon Torte

When people think of Easter, they usually think about eggs, bunnies, Jesus raised from the dead, the normal Easter things.  Not me.  I always think of Lemon Tortes.  Every year I would sit and watch my Mom make them.  While they are not my favorite dessert, there is something so special about them, especially now that she's gone.  I try and make them every year, and this year the girls were here to watch and help at the end. It is so cool to pass traditions down to the kids.

So here they are:     RUTHIE'S LEMON TORTES


First you have to make the meringue shells.   You will need 4 eggs, 1/4 tsp. cream of tartar, and 1cup of granulated sugar.  Separate the eggs, putting the whites into a mixing bowl, and saving the yolks in a small bowl for later.  I can not stress enough (nor could my Mother) you can not get ANY yolk into these whites, or it will not work.  I have always managed to keep them perfect, so I can't say if this is really true.

Beat the eggs whites and cream of tartar on high, adding the sugar slowly.  Beat until stiff.  This is going to take a few boring minutes of standing there.  Make sure you have a rubber scraper and scrape the sides of the bowl periodically.  My Mom always called it the "stiff peak" stage.  The mixture will get very glossy, and if you stick the spatula in it and lift it out, peaks like this are left behind.



Tortes work best when placed on a cookie sheet. WAIT!  Put some baking paper down first!  Just use a soup spoon and plop a dollop onto the sheet.  I have to make 13 tortes, so my dollops aren't huge.  I actually use five eggs in this recipe to get that many tortes, but don't change any of the other ingredients at all. :)  I am a "wing it" kind of cook.

Use the spoon to make an indent in the middle, so there's a place for the lemon pudding to go.  Try not to lick the spoon.  It is raw egg after all.  If no one saw me do it, it didn't happen.

Tortes go into a 275 degree oven for one hour.  I have to use both shelves in my oven for this many, so I switch them mid way, otherwise one batch is going to be brown on the bottom.   Then you turn the oven off and let them cool right in there. 

This is the part where you turn on the little ipod shuffle player and do dishes to Hall and Oats,  singing "Your Kiss Is On My List" as loud as you want to.  Who cares if you annoy psycho pants upstairs?  Then you must call your sister to ask about the double boiler.  You only use it once a year, so you don't want to screw anything up.  If she is in the shower you can dance around like a crazy person to "You Make My Dreams Come True", and "Private Eyes" while you wait for her to call you back...................... Oh, and even if you accidentally put the pans the wrong way, you wont screw up the pudding.  Don't ask, just be careful not to burn yourself.

THE PUDDING

Take the egg yolks you were saving, put them in the top of the double boiler.  Beat them up a little bit, then stir in  1/2 cup granulated sugar, and 1/4 cup lemon juice.  Mom used the bottle kind, I use the bottle kind.  This recipe has enough nonsense without squeezin' lemons!  Stir it over the double boiler for 5-8 minutes, until it thickens into pudding.  When I say stir, I mean stand there and stir til your arm falls off, or you are going to have scrambled egg in your pudding.  *gag*

Put the pudding in the fridge to cool.  Some years I have stored the torte shells in a ziploc and made the dessert right at dessert time.  You are really supposed to put it together at least twelve hours before, and my Mom always made them Sat afternoon, which is what I did this time.

Aren't the shells beautiful!?  You are supposed to leave them in the oven to cool, but today I took them out after about a half hour.  "I don't have time for this nonsense."  Then about five minutes later I heard a bunch of cracking noises coming from the kitchen.  It was the tortes!  I whipped them back into the oven and left them there til they were cool.  I guess it's about two hours.  Apparently my Mother wasn't kidding about that part.

Ashlyn, Hannah, and Caitlin were still here when the torte shells were ready, so I let them watch me fill them with pudding, and Hannah helped me with the saran wrap.  (Saran wrap is the devil.)  That's Ashlyn's thumb in the picture.  She loves lemon tortes!  So does Caitlin, she got to lick the spoon and sucked on it for a LONG time. :)  I had a little lick and shivered, because this pudding is SO sour.  It doesn't make much, but you do not need much on these tortes, believe me.

"I notice you have one left Auntie Jo." 

I was one torte short of room on the cookie sheet.  Forget it Ashlyn

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!