For anyone who loves citrus in the middle of winter, this is just the thing. . . or anytime, citrus is always good. This is a sweet bread, and is delightful with butter, as are most things. Poppy seeds aren’t in the ingredients list, but oh goodness, how could I *not* include them? I added 1 TB of them and it turned out perfectly, so I’ve added them to the recipe. One of my favorite sweet things for when I’m just craving baked sugar is the gigantic poppy seed muffins from Costco, so I think that’s what inspired this bread. Feel free to edit this recipe as much as you feel inclined to do, but I can guarantee that it will be a great little snack when you want something quick. Sweet and somewhat sticky bread. (: I made this recipe with two others, Baby Duch Babies and muffins. All in all, the kitchen was an explosion of goodness and not-really-sweet sweet things.
The lemon is the prominent flavor in this loaf, as I would hope, seeing the title. The poppy seeds are not very flavorful, but they do offer some pleasure for the eyes. As you bite into the loaf, it’s sweet and chewy. It melts on your tongue as lemon envelopes your taste buds. Crumbs will probably get everywhere, but it’s worth it. You will find yourself reaching for another slice as soon as you finish the first. I hope that you enjoy this sensory sweet treat as much as I did. I love mixing wet ingredients with dry ones. It makes a little puddle and slowly comes together into the delicious dough. I will freely admit that I played around with rolling the egg in the dry dough to make a well for the wet ingredients. Sometimes the small things are the most fun.
As always, I did learn some important lil tidbits. One of which would be to *always* put wax paper under the batter even if the recipe doesn’t say so. I got a huge chunk of bread ripped off of the loaf because I neglected to do this. I will say I have never made bread before in my defense, but yeah, don’t do that. I also omitted the nuts because I don’t like nuts in my bread. It is totally up to personal preference, however. This bread rose so much, it was amazing to watch in the oven. It gets a perfect dome shape as it bakes for 50ish minutes. The golden tint of the bread and the lemon wafting out is so tantalizing and it’s torturous to wait for it to cool so that you can eat it. You should wait for it to cool, and then put it in the fridge, it’ll be easier to cut after this.
Prep: 20 minutes
Bake: 50 minutes
Oven: 350F
INGREDIENTS:
- 1 3/4 cups AP flour
- 3/4 cups sugar
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 beaten egg
- 1 cup milk
- 1/4 cup cooking oil/melted butter
- 2 tsp finely shredded lemon peel
- 1 TB lemon juice
- 1 TB poppy seeds
- 2 TB lemon juice (optional)
- 1 TB sugar (optional)
DIRECTIONS:
- Grease the bottom and 1/2 inch up sides of an 8by4by2 inch loaf pan; set aside. In a medium bowl stir together the flour, the 3/4 cup sugar, baking powder, and salt. Make a well in center of flour mixture; set aside.
*Line bottom of pan with wax paper.* - In another medium bowl combine the egg, milk, oil, lemon peel, and the 1 TB lemon juice. Add the egg mixture all at once to the flour mixture. Stir until just moistened (batter should be lumpy). Fold in seeds. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan.
- Bake in a 350F oven for 50-55 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted near center comes out celan. If desired, stir together the 2 TB lemon juice and the 1 TB sugar. While bread is still in the pan, brush lemon-sugar mixture over the top of the loaf. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan. Cool completely on a wire rack. Wrap and store overnight before serving.
