Glazed Lemon Loaf
It might be my Italian taste buds, but I love the flavor of lemon. It's crisp and refreshing and light, which makes it perfect for all kinds of summer dishes, especially desserts! This loaf is lemony inside and out, with a pound-cake-like consistency on the inside and a glaze on top that's the perfect combination of sweet and tart.
In baking (and let's be real, in all things lemony), it's best if you can get fresh lemon juice. Fresh is always best when it comes to produce! A lot of recipes that use lemon – including this one – do call for both lemon zest and juice, so you might as well just buy the whole lemons and use a reamer to juice them. You'll need about 2 whole lemons for this recipe.
Here's a zesting tip for all my millennials out there. If you're like me and you a) don't have enough room in your kitchen for all the gadgets, and/or b) you just haven't reached a point in your life where you own a zester, you can use your grater! (Here's hoping you have a grater.) I just have a little one like this, but the small grating / shredding part of the paddle works great for this purpose.
One of the things I love most about sweet loaves like this is that they're great for breakfast. If you know me at all, you know I love breakfast foods. Naturally, my favorite kinds of baked treats are the ones I can eat for the first meal of the day. I mean, if you dream big, you can eat any baked treat for breakfast... but that's a different topic for another day!
GLAZED LEMON LOAF
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Bake Time: 65 minutes
Ingredients
Loaf:
2 1/4 cup flour 2 t baking powder 1/2 t salt 1 cup sugar 1 cup butter, softened 3 eggs 1/2 cup milk
1 T lemon zest 1/4 cup lemon juice
Glaze: 1 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar 2 T lemon juice
1/2 T lemon zest
Directions
Pre-heat the oven to 350 F. Coat your loaf pan with cooking spray. In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Microwave your softened butter on half-power for about 20 seconds to make sure it's all soft enough, and then mix it into the dry ingredients. Start with a wooden spoon, but once most of it is incorporated, switch to a hand mixer.
In a small bowl, combine the eggs and milk and whisk it all together. Add this mixture to the large bowl with the other ingredients.
Add the lemon juice and zest to the large bowl as well. Use the hand mixer to mix all the ingredients together until smooth. The batter will be a nice medium thickness – not as heavy as bread dough, but not as runny as cake batter.
Pour the batter into the loaf pan, and bake for 60-70 minutes. Use a cake tester to make sure it's done in the middle!
Once the loaf has cooled, make the glaze by stirring the lemon juice into the confectioner's sugar. Then add the lemon zest and stir again. (Tip: If you feel the glaze is too thick, add a tiny bit of water in increments of 1/2 t to loosen it up. If it's too thin, you can add more confectioner's sugar.)
Pour the glaze over the top of the loaf. Once the glaze has hardened, slice and serve!
Happy Eating,
Natalie