BY THE SIMPLE HOUSEWIFE
FINDING ideas and recipes for cooking and baking has never been easier since the availability of the Internet.
Back in the day, how to cook or bake something is usually passed down from our elders through participating in the preparation and cooking, handwritten recipes or cookbooks.
These days, a few keywords typed into a search engine can generate so many recipes that you’re spoilt for choice.
Social media is also another source of inspiration, ideas and recipes if you subscribe to, or follow, cooking-related pages, chefs, food blogs or video channels.
This recipe for lemon bread is from my following of a Facebook page called “An Italian in my Kitchen”.
I had been wondering what to do with a few excess lemons in my fridge besides making lemonade, and this recipe appeared in my feed a few days later.
It is an easy recipe using the usual basic ingredients, pretty much like making a butter cake with added lemon zest and glaze.
Apart from reducing the sugar from 276g to 250g, I had followed the recipe accordingly.
When baking, do ensure that the oven is at the right temperature and try to use a right-sized cake tin.
If the oven is too hot or the cake tin is too small, it may cause the top of the cake to crack, just like this loaf that I baked.
My oven is not a digital one to ensure the exact temperature so it could have been a bit too hot.
To ensure the exact temperature, you may want to use a thermometer.
If yours cracks, do not be disappointed.
If the cake tastes better than it looks, it is not a total failure, right?
Lemon Bread
Ingredients
1 tbsp grated lemon zest
4 ½ tsp lemon juice
270g flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
¾ tsp salt
250g sugar + 2 Tbsp
170g butter
3 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
Method
1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celcius.
2. Grease a 9X5 inch loaf pan.
3. In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, salt and 270g sugar to combine evenly.
4. Cut the softened butter into small pieces, add into flour and mix with fingertips until mixture
becomes coarse crumbs (the original recipe tells you to use a pastry blender).
5. Stir in the lemon zest.
6. In a small bowl, beat the eggs lightly with a fork. Add milk and mix until combined.
7. Pour liquid mixture into the flour mixture, stir until everything is mixed evenly.
8. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour (or until skewer comes out clean).
9. Remove from oven to cool, then move to a wire rack.
10. In a small pot, heat the lemon juice and 2 Tsbp sugar over medium heat.
Stir constantly and bring to a boil until syrup thickens. Brush the syrup over the top of the bread.
11. Cut into slices and serve.
