I always have loved St. Patrick’s Day. 

When the boys were little, we always had Irish oatmeal for breakfast, bubble & squeak for lunch and then the regular: Corn Beef & Cabbage with Irish Soda Bread.  I don’t remember that there was any set dessert, just that somehow I worked in some green to it.

This year we’ll be having a St. Patrick’s Party for my sister’s son and his wife.  In some mild effort to be organized, I made this recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: from my home to yours.  I’ve baked from this book and blogged about it here.  One of my favorite features of the book are Dorie’s side bars where she gives you permission to ‘play around’.  I always feel especially daring thinking about playing around with a recipe from somebody as talented and polished as Dorie!  She tells a delightful story of how Pierre Herme passed the recipe for this lemon cream to her with a wink.

There is no playing around side bar with this recipe but I somehow think she’d be OK with this.  You may recall, I’ve made lemon curd before but this being for St. Patrick’s Day I went for Lime of course.  I’ve changed the recipe ever so slightly and cut back on the butter because I was very happy before I’d added it all.  It’s very simple to put together.  You just really need to pay close attention to her directions and the 180°F (82°C) as the point to remove the mix from the heat.

And believe me this is pretty heavenly stuff even with a little less butter.

Lime Cream

adapted from Baking: from my home to yours

by: Dorie Greenspan

1 cup sugar

zest of 4 limes

4 large eggs

3/4 cup fresh lime juice

(this was 4  1/2 limes for me)

200 g unsalted butter at room temperature

a little bit o’the green

I’m going to give you my bare bones how to, I highly recommend the book because one of the star features of the book is the excellent and friend in the kitchen instructions that are in all her recipe directions.

I used a large heavy sauce pan and brought water to a boil.  I used my Kitchen Aid mixing bowl that just fit the sauce pan opening and touched into the water slightly.

The lime zest I mushed with my hands in the sugar until the sugar drew out some of the lime zest moisture and smelled so beautiful I nearly fainted. 

Whisk in the whole eggs and then the lime juice.

Cook this mixture over the boiling water up to 180°F (82° C).  And WHISK you need to keep this moving.   You’ll just be seeing tracks in the cream when it’s done.  Remove this from the heat as soon as the cream reaches 180°F (82° C).

At first when I poured this into my sieve, I thought this is too thick, I’m not going to do this.  Then I saw by whisking a little it started to come through and without all the bits of zest.  It does work and it’s worth it!  Do it!!

Pour the strained cream into your blender and run something like 3 to 5 minutes on high while you drop the room temperature butter in.

I’m going to use this in a cake I have planned which I’ll probably let you in on later.

And now what shall I move onto?  I think I may spend some time in the garden.  I got one bed dug up just before it rained two days ago.  I really want to be there when the wisteria bursts into bloom on top of our new lattice arbor.