Monday, February 22, 2010

Lemon Blackberry Bread

Let me say that I am just starting to feel comfortable baking...and I haven't even scratched the surface.  This year I'm hoping to do my first cake from scratch and maybe whip up a meringue or two - stay tuned for that!

I don't know exactly what my turning point was but I know that once I had accumulated all the standard ingredients and equipment baking became so much easier.  I read through recipes and can mutter "got it, got it" under my breath as I look at what is required.  And it's easier on my budget to pick up oddball ingredients as needed versus trying to buy everything at once.

The other day I had what Oprah would call an "aha" moment over a baked good while out to lunch with my husband. We were at Market Street Diner in Sun Prairie, WI which is a cute diner with a bakery and I was lusting over some lemon blackberry bread with a crumbly top that they were selling for $5.79.  My husband was keeping our budget in mind and urged me to resist buying it.  After I was done pouting (mostly fake - you girls know what I mean) I suddenly realized that I could probably make something like that.  As soon as we got home that day I started looking for recipes. 

Now the reason the lemon blackberry bread is sharing the stage with some cornbread on the plate below is this was our offering to my friend's Super Bowl party where we brought appetizers themed to our team.  And my team is...the Vikings!  So my husband throught up doing the purple and gold breads, cute huh?  I put half  of the berries in the food processor to dye the bread that day...it won't normally be so purple.




Lemon Blackberry Bread

This recipe came to me by way of Recipe Girl who credits Bob's Red Mill as her source.

Topping

1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup unbleached white flour
4 tbs unsalted butter, softened
1 tsp grated lemon zest
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp lemon juice

1.  Combine ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.

Bread

3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup milk
4 tbs unsalted butter, softened (or use 2 tbs butter and 2 tbs applesauce for a lower fat version)
1 egg

1 cup unbleached white pastry flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

2 cups blackberries
1 tbs grated lemon zest

1.  Heat oven to 375.  Spray a 9x5 pan with cooking spray and set aside.
2.  In a medium bowl combine and mix sugar, milk, butter (or butter/applesauce combo) and egg until smooth.
3.  In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking powder and salt.  Stir into sugar mixture until just combined. 
4.  Add blackberries and lemon zest.  **Note - if you taste the batter at this point (and you should) it will taste like cookie dough, so yummy!
5.  Pour batter into pan and sprinkle with topping.  Bake approximately 50 minutes or until a toothpick in the middle comes out clean.

If you are anything like me and having baked goods in the house is too much of a temptation then check out this magazine for some exercises to do while the bread is baking.  As soon as I post this I'm finishing the latest batch of bread and getting on the floor for some sit-ups.

1 comment:

  1. Looks delicious! I know how you feel, I can cook but baking is a whole other story! Cheers~

    ReplyDelete

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Generic License.