Sicilian Lemon Loaf

It is lemon season here in my corner of the world, and gracious but do I have lemons! My CSA keeps giving me them, so I had fourteen of them on my counter as of this morning and a half lemon in the fridge. I needed to find a lot of things to do with my lemons. A lot of lemon recipes call for a couple tablespoons of lemon juice, maybe topping out at 1/3 of a cup, but I have Lemons. So. Many. Lemons.

I remembered that my friend does an orange cake with whole oranges, so the search was on: could I find a tasty recipe where I could puree up an entire lemon or two at a time and have something at the end that would freeze well? It turns out that yes, I can! Especially for the Meyer lemons in the midst of the horde. (Yes, horde, not hoard--these are not objects I am collecting but a mass of organisms organizing themselves in my fruit bowl! They have Intent!)

The only thing I lacked for the recipe I found was yogurt, so I thickened some milk with ground flaxseed. I wanted it to turn out with the same moistness that I would get with yogurt, and I do believe that I achieved that. I also added poppy seeds because I ordered poppy seeds in bulk last go 'round. (Why did I think I needed a pound of poppy seeds? Who knows, but I will put them in everything even mildly appropriate now.) Also, Chris likes poppy seeds.

Sicilian Lemon Loaf

adapted from Christina's Cucina

Ingredients

1/3 cup milk

2 Tablespoons ground flaxseed

3 eggs

1 1/2 c (12 oz) sugar

1 3/4 c (~9.625 oz) all purpose flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/3 cup butter, softened

2 Tablespoons poppy seeds

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large or 2 medium Meyer lemon(s), about (10.5 oz), washed and cut into pieces (with the rind, but remove the seeds) 

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F

2. Prep a loaf pan by either lining with parchment or greasing with oil.

3. Mix the milk and ground flaxseed in a small bowl. Set aside for 15 minutes.

4. In a large mixing bowl, beat together eggs and sugar until fluffy.

5. Sift together flour and baking powder, then add to the mixture in the large bowl along with the softened butter.

6. Mix in milk/flax and vanilla extract.

7. In a food processor, process the whole lemon until it is almost pureed. Add this lemon to the cake mixture and fold in until evenly combined, then put the batter into the prepared loaf pan.

8. Bake for 80-90 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Allow to cool for about 15 minutes.