What's Baking: Lemon Poppyseed Loaf

It was my time to host the What's Baking Challenge this month.  The girls in this swap usually come up with some really good themes, and I am not creative at all.  The one thing that I thought of was that in cooler weather, I love quickbreads.  I have made several banana quickbreads lately.  While they turned out fantastic, especially the Nutella Banana Bread that I tried, I decided to try something else.

I love lemon cakes.  When we're in the store and I see lemon cake of any kind, I always say that I'm going to go home and make a lemon poppyseed bread, but then never do.  I usually eat the loaves alone, so I try not to tempt myself too badly.  I decided to break down and finally make my lemon poppyseed loaf, especially since no one else made anything similar.

Lemon Poppyseed Loaf
barely adapted from StoneGable
Ingredients
3 tablespoons milk

3 large eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1 1/2 cups cake flour

1 cup sugar, divided

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon loosely packed grated lemon zest (~5 lemons)
2 1/2 tablespoons poppy seeds

12 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1/8 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (~2 lemons)

 

Directions

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease large loaf pan. 

2) In a small bowl mix together milk, eggs and vanilla.

3) In a large bowl of a mixer, mix together flour, 2/3 cup sugar, baking powder, salt, lemon zest and poppy seeds on low speed for 30 seconds.

4) Add all of the softened butter and 1/2 of the egg mixture. Mix on low speed for 30 seconds increasing speed to medium and mix for another 30 seconds. Add the rest of the egg mixtures in 2 parts mixing for 20 seconds in between.
5) Pour batter into the loaf pan and bake for 50-55 minutes until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
6) Put 1/3 cup sugar and 1/4 cup lemon in a saucepan and cook until sugar dissolves.

7) When pound cake is done, poke holes over the top of the cake with a skewer.  Brush glaze over cake.

 

 

 

I may be biased because I love lemon cakes, but I thought this was a good recipe.  I baked it about five minutes too long and it came out a little on the dry side, so I adjusted for the time difference in the directions.  The glaze made the cake moist and even more flavorful.  I wish there was a little more lemon flavor in the actual cake than the zest, but it is still a very good cake.