What smells like roasted corn?
Umm, nothing dear!
It was a spur of the moment quick bread. I didn’t note the size of pan required for the recipe, and I modified the original to include sour cream and a little olive oil since the last egg in the fridge mysteriously disappeared. The roasted scent was from the globs of dough burning on the bottom of the oven. More was on the way from the seething undersized loaf pan on the top rack. A cookie sheet on the lower rack was pushed in as I grabbed the closest utensil to scrape the rapidly hardening expulsions. My heart sunk, was the whole thing ruined?
I left the darn thing in the oven to finish baking, hoping my late night dessert would survive. Every door and window was open in an attempt to evacuate the billows of smoke coming from the oven floor. With all the commotion in the kitchen I was surprised no one came out to investigate!
Happily, the loaf finished baking. It’s not the prettiest lemon poppy seed cake/loaf but it could be one of the tastiest.
I shared the first slice with Hubby. And saved the rest for breakfast.
Lemon Poppy Seed Loaf
Adapted from The Great Holiday Baking Book by Beatrice Ojakangas
This original recipe was a cranberry nut quick bread. I changed the flavour using lemon zest, juice, and poppy seeds.
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 cup butter, melted
- 4 lemons, zested and juiced
- 2/3 cup sour cream
- 1/3 cup oil
- 4 Tbsp poppy seeds
Mix the dry and wet ingredients separately, adding the poppy seeds to the wet bowl. Make a well in the flour mixture and add the wet ingredients. Mix by hand until the flour disappears and the batter is evenly moist. It will look dry and clumpy, that’s OK!
Spoon the batter into two 5 x 4 inch loaf pans or into muffin tins. Be sure that the pans or tins are half full or your oven will end up like mine.
Bake at 350ºF for about 50 – 60 minutes.
You might want a cookie sheet under that. You can thank me later.