Lemon Loaf....

I like coffee, In fact there's a cup beside me right now and it's not the first cup of the day. Whenever I reach for the bean there's usually a little something sweet to accompany it. This pairing goes way back to when I would drink tea as a kid, and then eventually coffee and have a chocolate biscuit with it.

Screech....back up. When I say biscuit I have to translate that to cookie as now I live in the U.S. and back then I grew up in Scotland where a U.S.biscuit is a scone. Still with me? Good, I'm sure I'm not the only person who carries out this ritual but lately I have giving too much cash to the green serpent, AKA Starbucks. Some may say their coffee is roasted for too long and becomes bitter but I like it and I know it's not the best I can get, but my other favorites are more sparse when it comes to location and we all know how un-sparse Starbucks locations are, right?

The blog title is lemon loaf and Starbucks sells some good stuff, moist and lemony with just a tease of icing and it goes great with my tall red eye.

There are quite a few recipe sites available now where popular items are replicated and it didn't take very long to find one calling itself quite simply, Starbucks Lemon Loaf. I checked out the ingredient list and it was simple with lots of lemon. I followed the recipe but increased the amount if lemon extract and lemon juice, I wanted this loaf to be moist.

The finished loaf was tasty and I would make it again, but it just wasn't like my piece from the drive-thru. The Starbucks version is more dense and tangy. It probably has a bunch of "special" ingredients in it just like the Colonel's chicken but I know my loaf has the simple ingredients and I'm happy with that.

Recipe adapted from Recipe Circus:

1-1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. softened butter
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. lemon extract, I used 2 tsp and thought it could still be more lemony, I also threw in the zest from the lemons.
1/3 cup lemon juice, I used about 2 more Tbsp on top of the 1/3 cup
1/2 cup vegetable oil

 Lemon Icing:
1 cup plus 1 Tbsp. powdered sugar
2 Tbsp. milk
1/2 tsp. lemon extract
I never used all of this icing so you could probably half it.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
In a separate bowl, blend eggs, sugar, butter, vanilla, lemon extract, lemon juice and oil with an electric mixer.
Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mix until smooth.
Pour into a well-greased 9 x 5 loaf pan and bake for 45 minutes.
When loaf is cool, remove from pan and ice with icing.