Doreen’s Lemon Loaf

It has been some time since I posted – law school is definitely time consuming.  Today, however, I needed a break from trying to understand the rule against perpetuities and wanted to make something simple and with good memories.  My grandmother’s lemon loaf was the perfect solution.  My grandmother, Doreen, wasn’t a great cook, but she made a few things that have definitely stuck around as favourites for me.  Two of them involved lemons, this cake and a lemon meringue pie that was to die for.  This is easy. The lemon meringue pie is more complicated.

Any type of lemons will work, but I had a bag of meyer lemons that I decided to use. The recipe calls for one lemon, I used 3 but they were small and not the juiciest.  As my dad says, you can’t have too much lemon.

Usually I spend a great deal of time on the photographs, but right now I don’t have the luxury of time, so I have gone to my point and shoot. I hope that the photo still entices you to give this simple and yummy recipe a try!

Doreen’s Lemon Loaf

6 tablespoons butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs, beaten

1 lemon, zested and juiced

½ cup milk

1 ½ cups flour

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

1/3 cup sugar (for glaze)

Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a 8.5×4.5″ loaf pan or two smaller loaf pans with parchment paper.  I prefer to use two small pans and reduce the baking time.

Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl.  Add the beaten eggs, lemon zest, and milk to the creamed mixture.  Sift together the dry ingredients (excluding the sugar for the glaze).  Mix the dry ingredients into the liquid ingredients.  Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake for one hour or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. I sometime find that it helps to lay a piece of parchment over the pan after the loaf begins to brown, to prevent over-browning. Remove the loaf from the oven.

Mix together the lemon juice and 1/3 cup sugar.  Carefully loosen and remove the still-warm loaf from the pan discarding the parchment paper. Return the loaf to the pan, pouring the lemon sugar glaze over it.  Allow the loaf to cool and absorb the liquid.  Remove the loaf from the pan when the liquid is absorbed. Cut, serve and enjoy with a cup of tea.