Cooking Diaries: Easy peesy Lemon bread

 I love lemon. I don’t exactly know how my obsession with this citrusy fruit started but all I know is that I use lemon for everything. I use it as part of a “tomato-lemon solution” to cleanse my face when I’m having breakouts, I add lemon oil to my body butter which doubles as a moisture sealant for my hair, and It is a key ingredient in my favorite weekend snack; the Lemon bread.

I first discovered Lemon bread when I was searching for bread recipes. Big treat is one of my preferred bakeries in Lagos (I also like “underground” at Yaba, close to UNILAG) and my favorite bread to buy there is their “cake bread”, a delicious hybrid of cake and bread with the sweet cake part on top and the crusty bread top at the bottom. But spending ₦300 on a bread the size of ₦60 agege bread EVERY weekend (I was an unemployed “ex-coffer” and I wasn’t about to spend all of my allowee on “couture” bread!) was impossible. So I decided that I was going to surf the web and find delicious bread recipes that I could make which would not require any fancy ingredients. That was when I stumbled upon Lemon Bread. It is categorized under sweet bread and judging from the search results, Banana bread is the most common type of sweet bread. I could have gone for the banana bread but I judged it at face value and felt Lemon bread would be better (because it’s prettier!). The original recipe I got was for Blueberry Lemon bread but since I didn’t want mine with fruits, I omitted the blueberry. It still came out great!

Here’s recipe I used for Lemon bread (gotten from joy of baking):

1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon grated lemon zest (outer yellow skin of the lemon)

1 cup (240 ml) fresh blueberries (I omitted this)

1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature (If you must use salted butter, then don’t add the ¼ teaspoon salt)

3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated white sugar

2 large eggs (or 3 small ones)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup (120 ml) milk

Lemon Glaze:

2 tablespoons (25 grams) granulated white sugar

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

The process?

Firstly, Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) and place the oven rack in the center of the oven. Butter the bottom and sides of a loaf pan (preferably small sized because the bread isn’t big anyway) and dust the pan with flour.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and lemon zest. 

 

flour, baking powder,salt and lemon zest mixture

For those that want to add blueberries: Remove 1 tablespoon of the flour mixture. Place the blueberries in a separate bowl and toss the berries with the 1 tablespoon flour (this will help prevent the blueberries from sinking to the bottom of the pan during baking.)

In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the butter until softened (about 1 minute). Add the sugar and continue to beat until light and fluffy (2-3 minutes). You’ll also notice that the butter has gone from bright yellow to a creamy off white color. If you don’t get this color, you should beat the mixture a little longer. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in the vanilla extract. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture (in three additions) and milk (in two additions) alternately, starting and ending with the flour. Mix only until combined. Gently fold in the blueberries (for the blueberry lemon bread).

lemon bread batter

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 55 to 65 minutes, or until the bread is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Lemon Glaze: In a small microwaveable bowl, stir the sugar with the lemon juice. Place in the microwave for about 20 seconds or just until sugar has dissolved.

When the bread is done, remove from oven and place on a wire rack. Pierce the top of the hot loaf with a wooden skewer or toothpick and then brush with the hot lemon glaze. Cool the loaf in the pan for about 30 minutes then remove from pan and let cool completely on a wire rack.

All done!

This recipe is so easy to make, anyone can try it, I would also love to try a fruity version of this just to taste. Anyone wanna try this delish bread? Send me the fab pics!

Recipe makes 1 loaf.