Sunday Salutations and Summer Baking
Happy Father’s Day. I hope everyone appreciates the wonderful men in your life, the mentors that help you, whether he is a biological father, an adoptive father, or just the male giving a guiding hand in your journey. Remember, fathers are pillars of strength that support you. Be grateful for that foundation, whether it has always been there or whether you found that support later in life.
At first I have planned to post a baking recipe, but who wants to turn on the oven in the summer! Instead, I have a really fun lemon bar recipe, somewhere between a frozen dessert tart and a popsicle. (However, it does involve a very short baking process.)
Egg-less Frozen Lemon Bars
Crust Ingredients
1/2 cup almond flour (or coconut flour)
1/4 cup baobab flour
1/4 cup arrowroot starch (or tapioca flour)
1/2 cup ghee (or coconut oil)
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon of lemon zest
Lemon-Lime “curd” Topping Ingredients
3/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup of lime juice
1/4 cup maple sugar
1/4 cup honey
4 Tablespoons of ghee (or coconut oil)
3 egg replacements
1 package of gelatin (or 1/4 cup of arrowroot starch)
1/2 teaspoon of lemon/lime zest (~1 large lemon or 2 limes)
1/2 teaspoon of tart lemon (optional for extra strong lemon flavor)
1/8 teaspoon of salt
Crust Preparation
Preheat the oven to 325 F. (Well… it is summer baking. Sorry.)
Mix together the three different flours and lemon zest. Note you should have 1 thick flour, 1 thin flour and 1 binding flour. I specifically used baobab flour here as the thin flour because it has a subtle lemon taste.
Stir in the ghee and maple syrup.
Evenly flatten the crust down on an 8x8 baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
Poke the crust with a fork evenly across surface.
Bake crust for about 20 minute (or until it slightly browns). While it cooks prepare the lemon curd.
Take out of oven, turn off oven, and pour lemon curd over it. Place slightly cooled baking tray into the freezer to cool faster.
Lemon-Lime “curd” Topping Preparation
Prepare the egg replacement as directed. I use Bob Red Mills egg replacement so this means 1 Tablespoon of mix with 2 Tablespoons of water per egg. Stir and let sit for 1 minute. Then stir this into the next step.
In a medium saucepan, whisk together eggs, gelatin, sugar, honey, salt, lemon juice, lemon zest, and lemon favoring until fully combined. Do not place on heat yet.
Place the saucepan over low heat and cook, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon, about 4-5 minutes.
Remove from heat and immediately stir in the diced butter until fully incorporated and smooth.
Strain the lemon curd through a fine sieve to remove any clumps and zest.
Pour the strained lemon “curd” over the cooked crust and place both in the freezer for at least 2-3 hours or until solid.
Remove from freezer and cut with warm knife into squares. Best served cold. This can be served at room temperature but are oh so much better frozen in the summer heat.
If you try out the recipe I would love to see pictures of your versions. Or if you want to suggest other similar fun summer baking recipes, please feel free to leave a comment.
What does this have to do with our writing?
As mentioned below, last week we submitted our first novel to the slush pile. The people this novel centers around are very concerned with cooking, recipes, and ingredients. So, this seemed an appropriate time to do a recipe.
In other writing related news, we will have more dog competition experiences for our writing soon. We signed Anna and Crokell up for six days of rally and other competitions in July.
Writing Update
In writing updates, we are getting ready for an event next week! Eeeek! How did June sneak up on me so fast? We have gotten feedback form our beta readers and are going to pitch our novel to some editors in person at a convention soon. I need to practice pitching aloud. We polished up our query letter a few week ago. Last week, we submitted the novel to the slush pile. Based on how traditional publishing works, I don’t expect to hear anything for about 18 months.
In other publishing news, we are getting closer to the release of the Tull Anthology. The Covers have already been revealed by Sam Robb on his SubStack a month ago.
And yesterday Sam Robb put out the full list of who made the first anthology on on his SubStack. I believe the official release date for this story is next week. https://substack.com/home/post/p-145661269
We are really looking forward to seeing our new universe in print and our first light tap-dance into the clean romance realm with a sci-fantasy backdrop.
Other than that, Tod is revamping an outline for a novel in another universe and after I post this blog, I will be tapping away at a Nano-sapiens story. Hopefully, we will complete drafts of both of these new novels by the end the year.
Remember to keep the heat off with a sweet treat.
Anna and Tod
PS - Just for fun, here is a picture of Beleth wearing a “hat”. He’s really patient with our silliness.
