We have the most beautiful lemon tree in the house yard, and we have been watching the lemons form with anticipation since we got here.
First thing we made was Lemon Butter, which is my favourite spread of all time. Nothing better than hot buttered toast with lashings of homemade lemon butter.
Second thing we made was Limoncello. It’s been a special tipple since we first tried it in Italy years ago. The kids brought us home a souvenir bottles when they last visited Italy, and we remember sharing an excellent bottle of Limoncello at La Dolce Vita at Caloundra one holiday. You can buy it at the local bottlo, but why not try making it for yourself?
Use this Limoncello recipe to make your own:
Take a bottle of vodka, whichever is your favourite, and add the peel of about 12 lemons.
Try to be careful when you are peeling the lemons to not get the bitter white pith -make sure your peeler is sharp and you don’t dig into the skin too deeply.
Put the vodka and lemon peel mix into a sealed jar and leave it in the cupboard for at least 10 days, and up to about a month.
Once you can’t wait any longer, strain the peel from the vodka. We used a coffee filter paper in a funnel to strain it.
Add three cups of sugar syrup. Sugar syrup is made by gently boiling three cups of white sugar with three cups of water.
Add the sugar syrup to the vodka mixture, then pour into bottles. We like these cute little bottles that we bought online. They make the Limoncello look authentic, and it tastes much nicer out of a cute little bottle. The amount of sugar syrup you use is up to you, but it is supposed to be sweet so don’t be stingy!
Limoncello is best drunk really cold (you can store it in the freezer and it will not freeze), in a little port glass or shot glass. We like it after dinner, with some good quality dark chocolate or your favourite Italian dolce!
