For The Love of Lemon
Welcome my friends! My apologies for having been gone so many days. This past week did not allow time for me to join you here, at The Orange Bee. My absence has been at the forefront of my thoughts everyday. I am happy to return and share with you an ideal recipe for this warm, lively time of year, Lemon Cake-Bread.
This recipe goes together quick and easy. In all probability you have the ingredients on hand, which makes for a last-minute decision to whip up a loaf or two. I’ve always made this and referred to it as “Lemon Bread”, however when I made it yesterday Miss T was asking what went into the bread. As I listed ingredients; sugar, eggs, butter, lemon, flour, etc., she asked, “what about yeast?”. “There isn’t any yeast in this bread”, I responded. In her ever so canny way she stated, “sounds more like cake than bread”. That was all it took for me to rename it. It will now and forever go by the name “Lemon Cake-Bread”.
If you do not enjoy lemon you’ll not need to bake a loaf as the lemon flavor is predominate. Lemon is one of the flavors I especially relish and quite often will choose lemon over chocolate. Gasp! Yes, it’s true time and again lemon will win out when I am choosing a dessert.
Writing about my love of lemon triggers my thoughts to days past when living in southern California lemons, limes, grapefruits and tangerines grew abundantly in my back yard. What a wonderful way to spend a morning, choosing the perfect grapefruit for breakfast or the juiciest lemons for pie, or the ultimate tangerines for fresh squeezed juice. Ahhh….those were the days. I have a desire to add citrus trees to my yard but alas they will not be healthy and productive in the black soil given to work with. I can only imagine how happy my girls (bees) would be to produce orange blossom honey – how happy I would be to share it with friends and family.
This week was an incredible week with my bees. The majority of my one free day this past week was engulfed in bee adventures. What a day it was! To sum it up, I’ve acquired the “Rita Hive’, which is also referred to as hive #3. I now have more queens than when I last wrote and I assisted in capturing a swarm as well as boxing an entire colony of bees living in a water meter box! Oh, yes – it was an utterly thrilling day in the life of a bee keeper. For more of this story check out the Bees & Honey page at the top of my blog – The Bees Have Arrived – Lovely Rita.
Enjoy!
Lemon Cake-Bread
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1/3 cup milk
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
2 eggs
grated rind of two medium – large lemons
Lemon Glaze
juice of one large lemon
1/2 cup sugar
Cream butter, sugar and eggs. Add milk and stir in dry ingredients and lemon rind. Bake in loaf pan at 350* for 45 minutes. You can also use two small loaf pans and bake for about 30-35 minutes.
Stir ingredients for lemon glaze and pour over bread while still warm.
