Intensely Lemon

This post has been sitting in my files, waiting until I'm feeling better (have had a nasty cold since about Feb. 10), but I think it is getting stale, while I'm still coughing, so posting it anyway! I would probably be completely back to normal but I have kept doing scholarship group work and have even gone out for a couple of meals, so not everything has been on hold. True, I've read a lot of books and spent time in bed...never a terrible thing, right? The lemon bread is long gone, but I will make it again...it was really good!

I've always loved the flavor of fresh lemon. Lemonade is still one of my favorite beverages and lemon sugar cookies were my favorite as a child, even more than chocolate chip. Our local dairy made a lemon custard ice cream to die for. There is something fresh and bold about lemon that wakes things up.

Recently a friend gave me some Meyer lemons from her home garden. It took me longer than I would have liked to get to this next recipe, but life has been super busy, so what can you do?

Although I've made lemon quick breads before, this time I tried a new recipe from Rosemary of An Italian In My Kitchen. I was intrigued that you cut soft butter into the dry ingredients as you do for pie crust, then add the egg-milk mixture. I really wanted to see how that turned out! It also meant that I could do everything by hand and in just two bowls...one for the egg-milk mixture one one for the batter. Of course I used soy milk and cut in soft non-dairy margarine, but I'll bet it would be even better with unsalted butter and whole milk. Keep an eye on it toward the end of baking time. There is enough sugar in the batter that it burns easily. Check it with a toothpick earlier than the suggested time, just to be sure.

This is a delicious, intensely lemon flavored loaf, with the texture of a pound cake. I doubled the amount of lemon zest called for and doubled the amount of syrup for brushing on after the loaf is finished, while still warm. I also poked some thin holes all over the top before adding the syrup, so that it could penetrate into the loaf. All of that added to the lemon effect and to making each bite moist and delicious. With a cup of hot tea it's pure heaven!

If you only have one lemon, I'm sure that you could follow the recipe and it would still be a yummy lemon loaf. This would make a wonderful gift, too, and it is dense enough that it would probably ship well. Extra lemons? Make one to give and one to keep!

Fresh Lemon Bread
adapted from Rosemary at An Italian In My Kitchen

1 tablespoon grated lemon zest (zest from one lemon) (I used zest from 2 lemons)
4 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice (22 ml) (I used about twice this amount, juice from two lemons)
2 1/4 cups flour (270 grams)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder (7 1/2 grams)
3/4 teaspoon salt (4 grams)
1 1/4 cups + 2 tablespoons sugar, divided (276 grams)(I added another tablespoon for the pan)
3/4 cup butter softened (170 grams) (I used non-dairy margarine)
3 eggs, large
3/4 cup milk (177 ml) (I used soy milk)

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F (180 C), grease a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan. (I sprinkled a tablespoon extra of sugar over the part I greased, but it would be fine without and might not burn so easily).

In a large bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and 1 1/4 cups sugar, add the softened butter and, with a pastry blender, blend until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in the lemon peel.

In a small bowl, put the eggs and beat lightly with a fork, add milk, and mix until combined, then pour this mixture into the flour mixture and stir just until flour is moistened.

In the prepared loaf pan add the batter. Bake for 1 - 1 1/4 hours (or until toothpick comes out clean). Cool, then move to a wire rack.

In a small pot add 4 1/2 teaspoons of lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of sugar. Stir to combine. Over medium heat, stirring constantly, bring to a boil until thickened. With a pastry brush, brush syrup over the top of the bread. (I poked holes with a wooden skewer while bread was warm and then brushed on the syrup over the warm bread until it was all absorbed. I let it sit in the pan until cool, then turned it out onto a serving board.)

Tightly wrap any leftovers and store in the refrigerator.

Easing In To Fall With Tea Brack

Fall is my favorite season, so I usually hurry it a bit. Can't help it. I've already put the autumn wreaths up by the doors and since my garden has produced at least 21 pumpkins, I've perched three on each side of the front steps. They are super cute and add a zing of orange, too.

Driving around the area I notice that the trees have gotten into the early fall spirit and the leaves are already changing from green to various shades of gold, red, orange and brown, too. These are wild grape leaves I spotted while walking the dog a few days ago.

Tea Brack is a dense, moist sweet loaf bread, jam-packed with currants, raisins, candied orange and lemon peel, all of them pre-soaked in strong tea. There are warm spices, too. Tea Brack makes a lovely snack in the afternoon with a cup of tea. Cream cheese to spread on that slice is optional.

Tea Brack
one medium loaf
from Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads

1 cup white raisins (I used a mixture of dark, golden, and red raisins)
3/4 cup dried currants
1/4 cup chopped candied peel (I used half lemon and half orange peels)
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 1/2 cups cold tea (orange pekoe is fine, I used English Breakfast)
1/4 cup rum, Scotch, Irish whiskey, or brandy (I used Scotch)(optional but nice)
2 cups bread or all-purpose flour (I used half all-purpose, unbleached and half King Arthur Flour Irish whole-meal flour)
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon EACH ground cinnamon, grated nutmeg and salt
1 egg, room temperature, well beaten

Grease and line sides and bottom with buttered waxed paper - 1 medium (8" x 4") loaf pan. Leave the paper ends sticking out about 1/2 inch so the loaf can be pulled from the pan. Set aside. (You can prepare the pan the next day after the fruit is marinated.)

In a bowl combine the raisins, currants, candied peel, brown sugar and cold tea. Add a dollop of brandy or rum to give it a secret goodness, although this is optional. Cover tightly with plastic wrap so that no moisture escapes and let marinate overnight.

The next day...Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. while making the batter.

In a clean bowl mist together, with your clean fingers, or a spoon, the dry ingredients: 2 cups flour, 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon each cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Pour the dry ingredients into the marinated fruit mixture, stir well to combine, and add the egg. The mixture will be on the thin side. Pour or spoon the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake the loaf slowly in the 325 degree oven until a toothpick comes out dry when pierced into the load, about 1 1/2 hours. If using a convection oven, reduce heat; bake at 300 degrees F.

Remove the bread from the oven. Place on a wire rack about 5 minutes to cool, then remove the bread from the pan, discard the paper, and let cool completely before slicing.

Serve with butter or cream cheese...and tea!

I suspect that you could marinate everything and keep it in the refrigerator (for at least a few weeks) until you wanted to make the Tea Brack. That would mean that it would all be done in less than two hours. 

A Bread For and With Tea

One of my Christmas presents was Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads and it is a beauty. Hundreds of breads, both yeasted and not, dozens of new techniques to try, lots and lots of new flavor combinations, too. It was difficult to know where to start.

One recipe that caught my eye was the Tea Brack. Brack comes from the Irish word brac, meaning speckled – you can see that each slice is speckled with dried fruit and candied peel. It makes one loaf and the author plainly states that he loves to drink tea and that this lovely loaf has tea as one of its main ingredients as well as being a great thing to eat while drinking tea. It also has golden raisins and currents and I love both of those dried fruits in baked goods. You do need to start this the day before you bake it so that the fruit has plenty of time to marinate overnight.

I had expected a dense somewhat dry bread but it turned out to be very moist and chewy and fairly light for a bread with such a lot of fruit in it. I love the spiciness and hint of brandy, too. Truthfully, even though I used a good strong Irish Breakfast brew for the tea, you really couldn't taste the tea as such. It does, however, go really well with a cup of hot tea and a good book. Although Sweetie enjoys it so much that there probably won't be any left by day's end, this kind of bread usually lasts quite a while without getting stale because of all the fruit.


Tea Brack
one medium loaf
from Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads

1 cup white raisins
3/4 cup dried currants
1/4 cup chopped candied peel (I used half lemon and half orange peels)
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 1/2 cups cold tea (orange pekoe is fine, I used Irish Breakfast)
1/4 cup rum or brandy (I used brandy)(optional but nice)
2 cups bread or all-purpose flour (I used all-purpose, unbleached)
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon EACH ground cinnamon, grated nutmeg and salt
1 egg, room temperature, well beaten

Grease and line sides and bottom with buttered waxed paper - 1 medium (8" x 4") loaf pan. Leave the paper ends sticking out about 1/2 inch so the loaf can be pulled from the pan. Set aside. (You can prepare the pan the next day after the fruit is marinated.)

In a bowl combine the raisins, currants, candied peel, brown sugar and cold tea. Add a dollop of brandy or rum to give it a secret goodness, although this is optional. Cover tightly with plastic wrap so that no moisture escapes and let marinate overnight.

The next day...Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. while making the batter.

In a clean bowl mist together, with your clean fingers, or a spoon, the dry ingredients: 2 cups flour, 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon each cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Pour the dry ingredients into the marinated fruit mixture, stir well to combine, and add the egg. The mixture will be on the thin side. Pour or spoon the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake the loaf slowly in the 325 degree oven until a toothpick comes out dry when pierced into the load, about 1 1/2 hours. If using a convection oven, reduce heat; bake at 300 degrees F.

Remove the bread from the oven. Place on a wire rack about 5 minutes to cool, then remove the bread from the pan, discard the paper, and let cool completely before slicing.

Serve with butter or cream cheese...and tea!

More Persimmons

The persimmons are just about gone on our lone persimmon tree, but I did get enough pulp to make some really nice tea bread with walnuts. The cake I made with persimmons before had a lot of spices, so the persimmon flavor wasa bit hidden. This recipe has very simple flavors, so the persimmon and walnut flavors are the stars of the show.

The cake is made with the muffing method of having a wet mixture and a dry mixture. When you put them together it's important to stir just barely enough to combine the two mixture. Excessive stirring leads to tough tea cakes. I'd also recommend not substituting for the butter unless you are vegan or allergic to dairy. With such a simple set of flavors, the butter has an impact.

I baked my batter up in small loaf pans. The extras make great little gifts for friends. The small size means you can have a couple of slices with your tea (or coffe, milk, cocoa, etc) without it being too much, even if dinner will be on the table pretty soon.

Persimmon Walnut Bread
From Baking in America by Greg Patent

3 fully ripe persimmons (about 1 pound)
1 ½ cups walnut halves or large pieces (about 6 oz)
1 ½ plus 2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
½ cup sugar
½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1. Adjust oven rack to the lower third position and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Butter an 8 ½ by 4 ½ by 2 ¾ inch loaf pan (I used a set of smaller loaf pans); set aside.

2. Pull the stems off the persimmons and cut each fruit lengthwise in half. With a teaspoon or grapefruit spoon, scoop the pulp out into a bowl. Use a pastry blender or potato masher to chop or mash the pulp into small pieced; you should still have some pieces of persimmon mixed with the pureed pulp. Measure 2 cups and set aside. Eat any leftovers or reserve for another use.

3. Toast the walnuts in a shallow baking pan until fragrant, stirring once or twice, 6 – 8 minutes. Let cool completely. (Since my loaf pans were small, I chopped the cooled walnuts coarsely).

4. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together; set aside.

5. Whisk the eggs in a large bowl until thoroughly combined and slightly frothy Add both sugars and beat thoroughly with the whisk. Whisk in the butter. Stir in the persimmon pulp and walnuts with a rubber spatula. Add the flour mixture and stir only until the batter is smooth. Pour the batter into the prepared pan(s) and smooth the top(s). (Note: I made this using a stand mixer and was careful to not overmix…it worked fine.)

6. Bake for about 1 hour and 5 minutes, until the bread is well browned and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. (Smaller loaves require a shorter time to bake.) The bread will be quite dark, especially on the edges, but if loaf/loaves start to brown too much before being done, lay a piece of aluminum foil, shiny side up, loosely on top during the last 30 minutes or so of baking.

7. Cool in the pan(s) on a wire rack for 20 minutes. Run a small sharp knife around the side(s) to release the bread, and carefully unmold. Set right side up on a rack to cool completely. Wrap airtight. The bread can be frozen for up to 2 months.

8. Makes one regular size loaf, but recipe can be easily doubled. The origianl directions in the book were for double the amount shown here.

This recipe is a perfect one for Grow Your Own #24, an event from the lovely Andrea at Andrea's Recipes. The idea is to post about a dish you have made using something you have grown or harvested. Both the persimmons and the walnuts came from my yard. You can also replace the persimmon pulp with matching amount of applesauce and it will still be delicious tea bread.