I would love to start by saying that I am not a person that enjoys drinking alcohol but I do have a soft spot for limoncello and pretty much all things lemon. I'm kind of lemon obsessed. I make my own limoncello and love to use it for baking desserts and cooking in general. After our trip to Italy I have been using limoncello in many different ways and this recipe is going to be a work-in-progess because there's no doubt that I will be updating it with more zingy ways to use limoncello.
Without further delay; below you will discover the most tastiest uses for Italian limoncello and if you fancy it you can follow the link at the bottom so that you can watch how I make it. Do comment how you like to use limoncello because I would love to know!
1. Limoncello cheesecake
if you love cheesecake then you will love this limoncello cheesecake, in fact, if you hate cheesecake, you will love this cheesecake and if you hate lemon then you will probably hate this cheesecake. What I'm trying to say is that this cheesecake is the best and 95% of people love this cheesecake!
Limoncello cheesecake ingredients
- Digestive biscuits (150 grams)
- Butter (50 grams)
- Full fat cream cheese (300 grams)
- Icing sugar (50 grams)
- Double cream (150 ml)
- Limoncello (40ml)
How to make a limoncello cheesecake
Start by making your biscuit base. Crush your digestive biscuits into a thin light crumb. Heat the butter on a low flame in a small saucepan until melted, turn off the heat. Add in the biscuit crumb to the butter. Pour over a few drops of limoncello to flavour the biscuit.
Get yourself a cake pan with removable base and put the biscuit and butter mix into the cake tin and flatten down until nice and even.
For the cheesecake filling, in a medium bowl add in the cream cheese and icing sugar and whisk into a smooth texture, add in the double cream and whisk until thick then add in the limoncello and lemon zest of one lemon. Whisk until combined and thick, once thick enough stop whisking and pour over the biscuit base and place in the fridge overnight.
2. Limoncello biscuits
There are so many tasty biscuits that you can make with limoncello, all you have to do is add limoncello to your favourite biscuit. A specific Italian limoncello biscuit that is popular in Italy is called 'Frollini al limoncello' but I love adding a little limoncello to amaretti biscuits, biscotti, and even homemade oat biscuits.
3. Limoncello Mousse
This was surprisingly super tasty, I say surprisingly because mousse can be quite heavy but I really feel that with the lemon twist, it takes it to a new level. A level that you didn't expect, that feeling that you didn't know existed. With this mousse a little bit goes a long way, you only need a small taste to really appreciate the delicate aromas of the lemon. Everybody gets a sweet tooth after a savoury meal, having a light, refreshing airy mousse is a great sweet treat for all. In this recipe we use a classic Italian liqueur called limoncello but if you would like to make it alcohol free just use lemon juice instead of the liqueur. To make this limoncello mousse you will need these utensils; electric whisk, large bowl, medium bowl, cling film, and wooden spoon.
Limoncello Mousse Ingredients
- Whole eggs (3 large)
- Egg whites (3)
- Lemon zest (2 tsp)
- Limoncello (125ml)
- Granulated sugar (1 cup)
- Granulated sugar (2 tbsp)
- Double cream (250 ml)
How to make Limoncello Mousse
Put a small pan of water on medium heat and allow to simmer, in a medium bowl whisk together the 1 cup of sugar, limoncello, lemon zest and 3 whole eggs, whisk until well combined. Put on top of the pan of boiling water and continuously mix with a wooden spoon or whisk for 15 minutes or until the mixture becomes nice and thick.
Once the lemon and egg mixture is thick, leave to cool and pour into a large bowl. Put clingfilm in the bowl so it sits just on top of the mixture. Put in to the fridge for 2 hours. After two hours the mixture should have thickened and cooled completely.
Now it's time to whisk your egg whites, in a medium bowl on a high speed whisk the egg whites until you get stiff peaks, add in the two tablespoons of sugar and whisk until combined. Fold the lemon mixture into the stiff egg peaks and fold nice and gently until combined. Finally whisk the double cream until thick, fold that into the egg mixture and refrigerate overnight. Serve in glasses or dishes of your choice and if you want give a drizzle of limoncello to finish.
4. Limoncello sweets
Making sweets is not my strong point, in fact, I'm pretty terrible at it. If you know how to make sweets though, you could easily add limoncello into a sweet. Caffarel is one of Italy's oldest chocolatiers and they produce chocolates that have a thick dark chocolate outer with a creamy limoncello liqueur filling, the company was brought out by Lindt & Sprüngli in 1988.
Limoncello boiled sweets are very popular in Italy, the leading brand of lemon flavoured candy is Perle di Sole. Lemon sweets are very popular with many; they take away that sweet craving. Lemon leaves a great refreshing taste in your mouth, not to mention the benefits on digestion you get from lemon itself. Lemon sweets or drops were invented in England when a confectioner learned that if you add acidic things to sugar, it prevents crystallisation.
If you do not know how to make sweets, you should not attempt this recipe as it is very difficult to get right and you may end up wasting your ingredients. You can use glucose syrup instead of honey if you want to. Using a marble work top and creating an ice bath is recommended for the best results. To make the sweets the same colour as the featured image, you will need to add food colouring, however, it doesn't affect the taste and they are healthier without.
Limoncello sweets Ingredients
- sugar (2 1/4 cup)
- Lemon juice (1/2 lemon)
- Honey (2 tbsp)
- Water (1/3 cup)
- Limoncello (1/3 cup)
- Icing sugar to dust
- Yellow food colouring (optional)
How to make limoncello sweets
- Put the limoncello, sugar and water into a pan on low heat.
- Stir until combined well then bring to a high boil. Do not mix it whilst it is heating otherwise it may ruin the sweets. If you have a thermometer, it should be around 250f.
- Remove from the heat, add in lemon juice, and honey and stir well.
- Put it back on the heat and bring it to boil again.
- Pour the liquid onto a baking tray lightly greased. Allow it cool.
- Using your fingers or a small spoon, pull out pieces of the mixture a little at a time and roll into whatever shape you like and dust with some icing sugar.
5. Limoncello Tiramisu
I had no idea that this was going to work, and I thought it was unique to me but it turns out that there are plenty of limoncello tiramisu recipes out there. The idea for this started after I made up a fresh batch of limoncello and also made a tiramisu for our YouTube channel. I love to cook Italian things and there I was standing there, staring at both the coffee soaked tiramisu sponge fingers and a bottle of homemade limoncello. The lightbulb moment came and my recipe of limoncello tiramisu was born, unfortunately a lemon tiramisu didn't fall out of a tree and land on my head because that would have made a great story.
Apart from coffee, lemon is my favourite thing. One day I made a video showing you all how to make my famous homemade Italian style limoncello and this became one of our most popular videos to date accumulating over 40,000 views. Despite my love for traditional coffee tiramisu, it is common for people to not like the flavour of coffee and that is when I decided to experiment swapping out everything coffee and chocolate for lemon.
This Italian limoncello tiramisu is as indulgent as the traditional dessert, only it has a fruity citrus aroma followed by a sweet zingy flavour. The alcohol makes it interesting and adds a decadent twist on an old classic.
Ingredients for limoncello tiramisu
- 500g Mascarpone
- 4 eggs (Uova)
- 100G Sugar (Zucchero)
- 300ml limoncello
- 300g Sponge fingers – (di Savoiardi)
- Lemon zest
How to make limoncello tiramisu
- Separate the egg yolks and white and put them in separate mixing bowls.
- Add half of the sugar to the yolks and mix with a hand mixer on medium speed. Once combined and it begins to thicken, go ahead and add your mascarpone a tablespoon at a time whilst mixing.
- Slowly add the other half of the sugar to the egg whites until combined. The mixture should be thick enough to hold upside down without spilling.
- Add the thickened egg white mixture into the egg yolk mixture by folding carefully with a spatula.
- Get a rectangular dish and spread a small amount of the mixture on the bottom.
- Dip the sponge fingers into the limoncello and then place evenly on top of the mixture in the dish.
- Once you have a whole layer of sponge fingers, you can then add more of the mascarpone/egg mixture. On top to cover it. Repeat again with the sponge fingers and then add more mixture to the top.
- To finish the Tiramisu, grate lemon zest over it and then leave it in the fridge to set for 2 hours.
6. Limoncello drizzle cake
Lemon drizzle cake is arguably the best cake that exists, it is sweet, it is cake, and the lemon just comes through giving you something different. I prefer my lemon cake to be made with less sugar and more lemon but if you use limoncello and remove a lot of that sugar, you have the perfect base for a semi sweet cake. All you have to do is make your lemon drizzle cake as normal but replace some of the sugar and lemon juice with limoncello.
7. Limoncello icing
Add some limoncello to icing sugar to create a thick paste that can be used to decorate cakes, fruit pies, and more.
8. Limoncello simple syrup
When making pancakes, how about cutting out the middle man? Instead of using sugar and lemon juice you could make up a fresh batch of homemade limoncello syrup. It would have so many uses in the kitchen to sweeten foods without adding just sugar. You can use the syrup to sweeten and add flavour. Put a teaspoon in with a salad dressing, replace honey in a lemon tea when you're feeling unwell? What ever you choose to do with this limoncello syrup, I know it will taste beautiful.
9. Limoncello lemon curd
Make some lemon curd and swap out part of the lemon juice and sugar for a more in depth flavour from the limoncello. This would be delightful on toast but could also be another great way to create useful ingredients in the kitchen.
10. Drink it
I stood here scratching my head for a minute, thinking: "What else can you do with limoncello?" It seems I got so carried away with the abundance of opportunity of what you can do with this lemon elixir that I forgot the main purpose is to drink a small amount before or after a meal as an aperitif to clean your palette and to celebrate great times, in great company with great people.
Limoncello (Frequently Asked Questions)
Can you freeze limoncello cheesecake?
Limoncello cheesecake freezes better than regular cheesecake due to the alcohol content. To freeze it you should plastic wrap it and then put it in foil to prevent it from getting freeze burn.
How is limoncello different to normal cheesecake?
The main ingredients and method are pretty much the same but the taste is different, if you removed the limoncello from the cheesecake mix it would be a plain cheesecake. If you already have a cheesecake recipe that you love you could add 40ml of limoncello to your current recipe and omit some of the sugar for a citrusy twist.
Can you make limoncello cheesecake without alcohol?
Technically you could cook off the limoncello to remove the alcohol content, to do this, you would need to bring the limoncello to a boil in a saucepan but as limoncello contains alcohol, you would have to be extremely careful because it is flammable. A safer way would be to use something else instead of the limoncello such as lemon curd or lemon juice. That way you will still get the lemon flavours without the alcohol.
