Intensely lemony, satin creamy pots with sweet, buttery shortbread. This recipe, adapted from one of Nigella Lawson’s (How to Eat) is pure joy; rich enough to satisfy but with enough zing that you don’t feel overloaded.
Once you had made the mixture it needs to sit in the fridge to steep. 2 – 3 days is the recommendation and I would definitely concur.

Before we start, let me say that when we eat these, we like the lemons to punch you in the face and call you names; hence I have increased the recipe to 4 lemons from the original 3. It is an intense recipe there’s no doubt, but if you wish to be cautious, start with 3 lemons and once you’ve added the cream, taste the mix. If you can take some more lemon, go ahead and add the zest and juice of the 4th one. Are you man enough?
Here we go.

Zest all 4 of the lemons into a bowl.

Juice them and add the juice and 285g sugar to the bowl

Add 6 eggs to the bowl, using a hand whisk, whisk them until they are well incorporated.

Add 300ml cream and combine that.

Transfer the contents to a large jug, cover with clingfilm and leave in the fridge for at least 2, but preferably 3, days. Yes, DAYS. It gets the flavour steeped in.
You now have 2-3 days to find at least 8 ramekins of 150ml capacity and a roasting tin that will hold them all. I often get about 10 ramekins ready – it’s better than scrabbling around for jam jars whilst sobbing hysterically.

When 2 or 3 days have passed, remove the jug from the fridge and leave it at room temperature for an hour.
Preheat the oven to GM2/300F/150C. Put the kettle on.
You don’t have to do this all at once, you know – take your time.

Give the mix another swipe with the whisk – just to combine, not to get air into it – and pour into the ramekins that you have sitting neatly in a roasting tin.
Once you have evenly distributed it, leave it to sit a bit longer. I go through this procedure to try and lose the fridge coldness from everything because once, something happened. I have a scary tale to share. Sit down with me and hold my hand.

Once after making and serving this, we were washing up and 2 ramekins had cracked, then broke in my hands. Cut me, it did. CUT my hands. Claret all over the place.  Can you imagine if they had finally given up the ghost during dessert? Eeek. Luckily, they held on until the washing up water finally did them in. Better than a mouthful of glass though.  Sorry about that near miss, Bob and Maria, but at least you never knew anything about it.

Oops.

Anyway. Pour hot – not boiling – water into the tin to come about halfway up the ramekins.

Bake for 20-30 mins.
They should be set, but with some wobble, rather than sloshing, in the middle, bear in mind they will set more as they cool.

Remove from the water bath and leave to cool. You can eat them when they’ve cooled, or once cool, refrigerate them until the next day. Get them out of the fridge 2-3 hours before eating them.

Now to the shortbread.

Put 150g softened, unsalted butter and 75g icing sugar into a food processor and whiz to combine. Scrape to get all the bits.

Add 150g plain flour and 75g cornflour and a pinch of salt and process again to combine, scraping to get any stray streaks of flour back in.

Remove and lightly knead briefly to combine, from this

to this in about 3 kneads

You have 2 options now.
1st option.
Form into a cylinder, put in the fridge until firm, then slice and bake. I refrigerate it hard and use a very sharp knife to cut thin slices, but that’s because I like the contrast between the firm shortbread and the unctuous, silky lemon creams. Obviously, the thinner the slice, the firmer it will be. Dredge shapes with caster sugar if you wish.

2nd option.
Put a piece of clingfilm on the work surface, put your dough on top and cover with another piece of clingfilm.
Roll the dough out and cut out shapes with cookie cutters (I found some that were spoon shaped – that was cool).

Bake them straight away. You could gather up the remainder, and roll that into a cylinder, fridge it and cut slices – best of both worlds.

Spoons are a-bakin’

Cooled spoons (I baked them longer than I normally would, just to get them a bit harder)

Cooled slices

Here’s the finished combo.
See how the shortbread dips in nicely? Lovely.

Lemon Creams with Shortbread
(adapted form Nigella Lawson’s ‘How to Eat’)
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Lemon Creams:
4 juicy lemons, washed and dried
285g caster sugar
6 eggs
300ml double cream

* Before we start, let me say that we like the lemons to punch you in the face and call you names, when you taste this; hence I have increased the recipe to 4 lemons from the original 3. It is an intense recipe there’s no doubt, but if you wish to be cautious, start with 3 lemons and once you’ve added the cream, taste the mix. If you can take some more lemon, go ahead and add the zest and juice of the 4th one. Are you man enough?*

Zest all 4 of the lemons into a bowl.
Juice them and add the juice, sugar and eggs to the bowl. Using a hand whisk, whisk them until they are well incorporated.
Add the cream and conbine that.
Transfer the contents to a large jug, cover with clingfilm and leave in the fridge for at least 2, but preferably 3, days. Yes, DAYS. It gets the flavour steeped in.

You now have 2-3 days to find at least 8 ramekins of 150ml capacity and a roasting tin that will hold them all. I often get about 10 ramekins ready – it’s better than scrabbling around for jam jars whilst sobbing hysterically.

Remove the jug from the fridge and leave it at room temperature for an hour.

Preheat the oven to GM2/300F/150C. Put the kettle on.

Give the mix another swipe with the whisk – just to combine, not to get air into it – and pour into the ramekins that you have sitting neatly in a roasting tin.
Once you have evenly distributed it, leave it to sit a bit longer. I do this to avoid the ramekins cracking in the oven – quite an important point really.

Pour hot – not boiling – water into the tin to come about halfway up the ramekins.
Bake for 20-30 mins.
They should be set, but with some wobble, rather than sloshing, in the middle, bear in mind they will set more as they cool.

Remove from the water bath and leave to cool. You can eat them when they’ve cooled, or once cool, refrigerate them until the next day. Get them out of the fridge 2-3 hours before eating them.

Shortbread:

Preheat oven to GM3/325F/160C

150g unsalted butter, very soft
75g icing sugar
150g plain (all purpose) flour
75g cornflour (corn starch)

Put the butter and icing sugar into a food processor and whiz to combine. Scrape to get all the bits.
Add the flours and a pinch of salt and process again to combine, scraping to get any stray streaks of flour back in.

Remove and lightly knead briefly to combine.

1st option.
Form into a cylinder, put in the fridge until firm, then slice and bake. I refrigerate it hard and use a very sharp knife to cut thin slices, but that’s because I like the contrast between the firm shortbread and the unctuous, silky lemon creams. Obviously, the thinner the slice, the firmer it will be. Dredge shapes with caster sugar if you wish.

2nd option.
Put a piece of clingfilm on the work surface, put your dough on top and cover with another piece of clingfilm.
Roll the dough out and cut out shapes with cookie cutters (I found some that were spoon shaped – that was cool). Bake them straight away. You could gather up the remainder, and roll that into a cylinder, fridge it and cut slices – best of both worlds.

Either way, place shapes on to a parchment lined baking tray and bake for 20-30 mins. Check that the top is dry and that the bottom isn’t still doughy.
Cool on a wire tray. Store in a tin; they keep well.