Lemon Meringue Cake

If you're feeling ambitious, and you want a cake that is extra special, you will want to try this "Lemon Meringue Cake" recipe. With caramel, lemon cream, swiss meringue and chiffon cake you know they will be talking about this for a while, and don't forget you get to

There are a few steps to making this lemon meringue cake, but don't let that deter you as most of them are easy to do. To start you will want to make the chiffon cake recipe. While the cake is baking you can start the caramel recipe. The ingredient you will need for the caramel recipe include heavy cream, vanilla bean, sugar, water, salt, light corn syrup, lemon juice and unsalted butter. To start the caramel pour the cream into a small, heavy saucepan. Then split the vanilla bean in half lengthwise and use the tip of a sharp knife to scrape the seeds from the pod halves into the milk. Next place over medium high heat and bring to just under a boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce the heat to low to keep the cream warm. Then in a medium, heavy saucepan, combine the sugar, water, salt, and corn syrup. Bring this to a boil over medium heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Then cook, without stirring, until the mixture is a lovely amber color. Remove from the heat.

Lemon juice, rind, and zest are used in a wide variety of foods and drinks. Lemon juice is used to make soft drinks, lemonade, and cocktails. Lemon juice is used in marinades for fish, where its acid neutralizes amines in fish by converting them into nonvolatile ammonium salts, and meat, where the acid partially hydrolyzes tough collagen fibers, tenderizing the meat, but the low pH denatures the proteins, causing them to dry out when cooked. Lemon juice is frequently used in the United Kingdom to add to pancakes. Lemon juice may also be used for cleaning. A halved lemon dipped in salt or baking powder is used to brighten copper cookware, the acid dissolves the tarnish and the abrasives assist the cleaning.

Some things to know about the chemistry of meringues. When the egg whites are beaten, some of the hydrogen bonds in the proteins break, this causes the proteins to unfold and to denature. This change in the structure leads to the stiff consistency required for meringues. By using a copper bowl or metal bowl, or with the addition of cream of tartar that is required to additionally denature the proteins to create the firm peaks, otherwise the whites will not be firm. Plastic bowls, wet or greasy bowls will likely result in the meringue mix being prevented from becoming peaky. Wiping the bowl with a wedge of lemon to remove any traces of grease can often help the process. When beating egg whites, they can be classified in three stages according to the peaks they form when the beater is lifted to be soft, firm, and stiff.