lemon

Lemon Tea Bread

~ nancyruth ~ 5 Comments

For Church brunch I got it in my head to make a lemon something since I had lemons languishing in my refrigerator. I put them in a Ziploc bag which seems to keep them longer than loose in the crisper drawer. I had to look through several of my many cookbooks to find the recipe. I knew I had one somewhere other than the internet! I like cookbooks. I hope they do no become obsolete!

I found the recipe in a Better Homes and Gardens collection book America’s Best-Loved Community Cookbook Recipes: Brunches and Lunches (copyright 1996). I am not sure where I got this from but I do know I got it in the past several years and probably spent no more than $5 for it at some tag sale. It only calls for one lemon.

  • ½ cup butter
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon finely shredded lemon peel
  • 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ cup milk
  • ½ cup chopped pecans

First grate the zest from the lemon and then squeeze the juice. Save the juice for making the glaze. This is best when the lemon is at room temperature. Or first, grease the bottom and halfway up the sides of an 8x4x2-inch loaf pan and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a medium bowl stir the dry ingredients together. In a large mixing bowl cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs and 1 teaspoon of the lemon peel mixing well. Add the flour mixture and the milk alternately (I really have to look up the reason for this) and then stir in the nuts. Spread the batter in the loaf pan and bake for 55-60 minutes.

For the lemon glaze, take the lemon juice (about 3 Tablespoons) and the rest of the lemon peel (if you remembered to divide the zest!) and ¼ cup sugar and stir in a small bowl. Pour this over the hot bread and then let the bread cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool.

This is a nice moist bread. The cookbook adds a recipe for orange cream cheese which I did not make. A smear of cream cheese on a slice might be nice but it is very pleasant as is.

Sourdough Coffeecake

~ nancyruth ~ 6 Comments

I made a sourdough starter using the Cook’s Illustrated (Sept &Oct 2016) instructions. Then I made sourdough bread from a King Arthur Flour sales flyer. None of these have pictures. Since one has to feed the starter each week and there is always the “discard” I decided to make a coffee cake. I used a recipe I had printed from 2005 from Allrecipes.com. (All rights reserved…so I am just posting a picture of the recipe. Someone has since posted a version on that website which is slightly different than this one.)

This is a lovely and flavorful coffeecake. I substituted walnuts and Craisins for the pecans and raisins. I did not make the glaze. This cake keeps well covered on the counter for a week. Then it was all gone!

Miscellaneous thoughts from my kitchen: I started watching GBBO again and am having to catch up several seasons. Sometimes it inspires me to bake new dishes. I want to try Macarons. I think the show refers to all cakes as “sponges” whereas I think of a sponge cake as different than a butter cake. The show I watched recently had the technical challenge to make a lemon meringue pie. Well, I did not make a pie, nor meringue, but a nice lemon curd which I attempted to put into puff pastry (store bought) hand pies. Paul and Pru would not be pleased!

Seasons blessings to all!

Lemon Bread

~ nancyruth ~ 2 Comments

This weekend’s treat from Mom’s green recipe notebook is lemon bread. The clipping is from the back of a Kroger flour bag from who knows when? Mom collected a lot of these recipe clippings and sometimes hand wrote and/or typed them out in red or black ink with her own adjustments. I don’t know how many of these she actually made. So this journey is for her. Thanks Mom for all the baked goodies that you did make and the ones you may have hoped to bake.

  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 6 Tablespoons butter
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 Tablespoon lemon extract
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup milk, I used unsweetened almond milk.
  • Grated rind of one lemon, it’s juice, and additional 1/3 cup sugar

This apparently doubles as bread or cake according to the recipe. We ate it almost all in one day; it was so tasty!

Preheat oven to 325 but I put it at 350 degrees F. Grease 9 inch x 5 inch loaf pan. I put a piece of parchment paper lengthwise to aid in removing loaf from the pan after baking.

Mix dry ingredients together in medium bowl. Cream butter and sugar then add eggs one at a time beating well each time. Here is where I added the lemon extract. Add dry ingredients alternately with the milk. I forgot to add the lemon rind. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 45 minutes.

At this time warm the lemon juice and dissolve the 1/3 cup sugar in it. Here is where I added the lemon zest. This works nicely in a 1 cup Pyrex measuring cup in the microwave for about 20 seconds. Pour this over the loaf and return to the oven for 5-8 more minutes.

Baking weekend: lemon snack cake

~ nancyruth ~ 1 Comment

I wanted to make a lemon cake. I wanted to make a lemon cake with fluffy coconut frosting. I wanted to bake something. The grandkids were coming so I wanted something fun so I baked an ordinary banana muffin recipe in the “bug pan”.

Then I got out the snack cake recipe. I’ve made different versions before, https://mykitchenmythoughts.com/2019/06/20/snack-cakes/.

I figured I could make it lemon although that is not one of the options given. Would white sugar be okay instead of brown sugar? I just gave it a go.

So for the lemon cake I substituted all white sugar for the brown sugar. I added 1 teaspoon of lemon flavoring and one teaspoon of lemon zest. I added a few tablespoons of lemon juice to the water, still equal to 1 cup.

  • 1 2/3 cups flour
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon lemon flavoring
  • 1 teaspoon lemon zest
  • 1 cup water, add 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice to measuring cup then fill to 1 cup with water
  • 1 teaspoon vinegar

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. Spray an 8-inch square pan with cooking spray or brush with oil. I sprinkled unsweetened coconut flakes on top before putting it in the oven at 350 degrees F. Bake 35-40 minutes.

Looks a paler yellow in real life!

It worked; a moist lemony cake.