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I'm making a sweet (Twinkie-knockoff) cupcake filling, the recipe for which is shortening, marshmallow creme, confectioner's sugar, vanilla and a little saline.

I want to make it lemongrass flavored with fresh lemongrass. I tried 'steeping' minced lemongrass in the shortening (melted the shortening, added the minced lemongrass, let it sit for ~4 hours, re-melted and strained). No lemongrass flavor came through at all.

Then I muddled fresh lemongrass and added the muddled pulp to the finished creme. That worked well in terms of flavor, but I couldn't figure a way to separate the pulp from the creme.

What is the best way to get fresh lemongrass into this recipe? Without the fibrous chunks of lemongrass? Since there's no appreciable amount of liquid in the recipe there's nothing to steep the lemongrass in and mix in except the fat and that didn't seem to work.

A Barron
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3 Answers3

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I think you'll just have to get the lemongrass flavor out of the lemongrass, so you can add it without the pomace. I've done this successfully before, though yields are quite low. Basically you puree the lemongrass as finely as possible, then press it to extract the juice. I soaked chunks of lemongrass in warm water for a few hours to hydrate a little, then minced them in a food processor for a few minutes, then just gathered up the mince and squeezed it to extract the juice, which I ran through a sieve. I expect yield would have been better if I'd used a screw press of some sort.

Sneftel
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The major flavour component in lemongrass is Citral, followed by Nerol. Both of these are sparingly soluble in water, but quite soluble in alcohol. For Citral, its solubility in water is about 1 mg per ml (about 1 part in 1000), but in 70% ethanol it is 1 ml per 7 ml, while Nerol has a solubility of about 1.3 mg/ml in water but is very soluble in ethanol.

I would expect that it should also be soluble in lipids, but them actually taking up the flavour would be slow and variable (depending on fat/oil type) as to how much they might take up.

Your best bet to extract the flavour at home would be to infuse lemongrass into some high alcohol content vodka. This would take some time, but you could add quite a bit of blended lemongrass to the vodka, leave overnight and then strain through a couple of coffee filters to remove particulates.

Failing that, you could try making an essential oil - heat some lemongrass gently in water, skim and keep any oil that rises to the surface as this will be the flavour containing compounds. You will need a LOT of lemongrass for this to get any meaningful amount, but the oil should be quite concentrated and very strongly flavoured at the end.

bob1
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You may want to try food-grade lemongrass essential oils and see if that gets the flavor profile you want. Otherwise, I echo the suggestion to puree the lemongrass as finely as possible, but try alcohol as the solvent rather than shortening or water. You may then be able to cook the lemongrass liquor down. I believe this is similar to the extraction process for some essential oils. With water I would recommend using high heat because I know that is how lemongrass tea is made. I'm not sure if heat would be contradictory for alcohol extraction.

AGiff
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