Limone, Limón, Citrón? Not sure how I got hooked on them but remember my dad telling me I couldn’t eat more than one a day when I was a kid because the acid would eat the enamel off my teeth. My dad loved gardening, hunting, fishing and growing things, thus we always had a big garden and fruit trees, including a Meyer Lemon in our backyard. Oh how I enjoyed hanging with him and putzing around the garden. I was responsible for watering when he went on trips (he was a pilot). I consider myself lucky to have had a dad who treasured growing his own produce.

Last year I tried marmalade, which didn’t quite set but was a great addition to vinaigrette and dessert sauce. This year I made cake. A Meyer Lemon Cake with Chardonnay Sauce to be exact.

A recipe caught my eye in a Bonny Doon Vineyard’s newsletter a while back. Most intriguing was the use of olive oil. While I’ve heard of olive oil type cakes, I’d never made one and wanted to know how olive oil would actually taste in a cake.

It wasn’t too sweet and fairly light on it’s own, with subtle flavors of olive oil, but the aroma made me think savory. Conveniently the top had sunk a tad, so I added a thin layer of freshly made quince paste, a.k.a. Membrillo, I’d made the day before. The wine sauce brought it all together. At first I poured a little on top and watched it soak into the cake’s sides. Hum… more to soak, more taste. I settled on a slice in a puddle.

Since I’d polished the Viognier months before and a minimally oaked Chardonnay was open, chardonnay it was.

I always make candied lemon peels (I’ve graduated from eating raw lemons to candied peels which satiate the sweet tooth I inherited from my dad), and have used Meyers but peels from the more common Eureka or Lisbon are thicker, thus may be better to use. I added some to garnish the cake.

Before the Sugar

After the Sugar

Here’s the recipe with changes from that newsletter.