Lemon Tea Bread
A tender lemon loaf made with cake flour and lemon rind, finished with a lemon juice and sugar glaze poured over while hot to form a tart, crackly crust.
From the recipe book of Sandra Mills, a Le Cordon Bleu-trained cook in our family.
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Sandra Mills's Lemon Tea Bread is a buttery cake-flour loaf flavored with grated lemon rind. The magic happens at the end: while the bread is still hot from the oven, a mixture of lemon juice and sugar is poured over the top, soaking in and forming a tart, sugary crust.
Serve it sliced with tea or coffee. It keeps well wrapped for several days.
Ingredients
Bread
- 1 stick butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- Grated rind of 1 lemon
- 1 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 cup milk
Topping
- 1/2 cup sugar
- Juice of 1 lemon
Instructions
- Heat the oven. Preheat the oven to 350°F and grease a 5 x 9-inch loaf pan.
- Cream. Cream the butter and 1 cup of sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, beating in between. Add the lemon rind.
- Add flour and milk. Combine the flour and baking powder. Add it to the batter alternately with the milk and continue mixing.
- Bake. Pour into the loaf pan and bake for 45 minutes at 350°F, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- Make the topping. While the bread is in the oven, combine the 1/2 cup sugar with the lemon juice.
- Glaze. Place the bread on a rack to cool and immediately pour the lemon juice and sugar over the top. This makes a tart crust on the bread.
Tips
- Sandra's book has two copies of this page. One adds vanilla to the batter; the other does not, and stirs some of the lemon rind into the topping instead. Both are good.
- Poke a few holes in the top with a skewer before glazing so the lemon syrup soaks in.
More breads and rolls
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