I love to make sweet loaves as a dessert for a few reasons, you can make them in bulk and eat one right away keeping the rest of the loaves in the freezer for surprise guests, you can also dress them up by slicing  them into layers horizontally filling them like a layer cake for small, fancier dinner parties, they make great hostess gifts and you can slice them and individually wrap the slices before freezing them, this will allow you to grab one piece at a time for a quick dessert or kids lunches.

This particular loaf cake is really nice, it uses real lemons and takes about fifteen minutes to make the batter. Just like making lasagna, if you’re going to make one, you might as well make a few and only have to clean up once.

The only complicated part of the recipe is making the lemon base, you need the zest of the lemons (washed ofcourse) but not the pith, this is the white stuff under the zest which is very bitter. I use a soft fruit peeler which looks like a serrated version of a potato peeler but you can get the zest with a rasp or a pairing knife if you’ve got some skills. Then all you need to do is cut the pith off the lemon flesh. Put the zest and the lemon flesh into a blender or a bullet and blend it until it’s a fine pulp. It’ll be relatively liquid and yes, the seeds will be in there but they’ll be in tiny little pieces so it won’t bother you in the finished product. Feel free to play with the fruit in the recipe, you can use blueberries, saskatoon berries, keep it plain or use 40g of poppy seeds that have been soaked in the sour cream overnight (removes the bitterness).

Beyond that, this loaf is super simple. I have several sizes of loaf pans so this recipe will make two large loaves the size of a bread loaf and one half loaf or one dozen muffins if you don’t have a smaller loaf pan.

Be sure to use my pan release recipe, there’s nothing worse than making a gorgeous sweet loaf and it won’t come out of the pan…we’ve all been there. This is the stuff the pro’s use and always have on hand in professional bakeries.

Enjoy!

 

Pan Release

1/4 Cup Vegetable Shortening

1/4 Cup Butter

1/4 Cup AP flour

Mix all ingredients together until its a smooth paste. Use a pastry brush or clean fingers to spread all over loaf pans. Can be used for any baking pan.

 

Lemon Raspberry Loaf

Makes 2 large loaves and 1 dozen muffins

6 Cups AP flour (all purpose)

3 Tsp. Baking Soda

1 1/2 tsp Kosher salt

1 1/2 Cups Canola Oil

4 Cups Granulated Sugar

6 Eggs

1 Tbsp. Pure Vanilla Extract

1 Cup Sour Cream

4 Large Lemons Zested, peel removed and blended to make a puree

2 – 3 Cups Frozen Raspberries

All ingredients will work best at room temperature. Preheat the oven to 350F and prep. pans with pan release. Prep lemon puree to start so that it’s ready to go. In the bowl of a stand mixer place all wet ingredients together, mix with a paddle attachment on med/low speed for 2 minutes. Combine dry ingredients and sift with a wire whisk to combine. Turn mixer off and add dry ingredients to the wet ingredient. Start mixer on first speed to start and then once the ingredients are combine, turn the mixer to medium for one minute. Remove bowl from stand and add frozen berries, fold in using a spatula. Distribute batter evenly into the loaf pans filling 3/4 full. Tap the pans on the counter a few times to release any large air bubbles. Bake at 350F until a knife or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, approx. 50-75 minutes. Let cool to room temp before taking out of the pan. Drizzle with glaze if desired (recipe below). Enjoy!

 

Icing Glaze

1 1/2 cups Icing Sugar

3 Tbsp Milk

1 Tsp Pure Vanilla Extract

Combine all ingredients and whisk together to remove lumps. Drizzle over the top of a cooled cake using a spoon. Allow icing to set up completely before packaging.