Lemon Loaf

     I never really bought the food at Starbucks. Actually, I rarely get food at any coffee shop, the coffee itself is expensive enough! However, every once in a while, I will spring for a Starbucks lemon loaf. They are just the perfect little slices of lemon sweetness that is just too hard to resist! Like I mentioned though, they can get pretty spendy (about $3 a slice at the time of writing this, almost as much as my drink! Not much on its own but it adds up.) so when I was given a bunch of fresh lemons, I knew this was something I absolutely had to make!

    Of course while I was researching how other people make this copycat, I found out that most of them use lemon extract and yellow food coloring! I knew it was too good to be true! I love to use all natural ingredients in my cooking as much as I can and I did not want to buy yet another extract so I got going on making my own version of a lemon loaf. 

    My version of a lemon loaf is essentially a modified lemon flavored pound cake with icing.  Easy enough right? I started of by beating together the butter and sugar. Once those were combined, I beat in the eggs one at the time. I mixed in my lemon zest and lemon juice. I would not reccomend modifying the amount of lemon juice in your loaf too much or else you can risk the texture. Instead for more lemon flavor you can either add lemon extract or (my preferred method) add more lemon zest. 

    Once that was all good to go I mixed together my flour, baking powder, and baking soda, and folded it in with my lemon and sugar mixture. I made sure not to mix it too much before I gently mixed in my sour cream and milk. When everything was smooth I poured my batter into two greased 4x8 loaf pans. Personally, I like to take some softened butter and pipe it down the middle of my loaf to create a little extra moisture and to add a bit of cosmetic value with the uniform line down the center. If you. do add the butter down the middle make sure you do it right before you bake it because if you leave it for too long the butter can sink down to the bottom of the pan instead of sitting on the top and creating a line. 

    I baked my loaves for 45 minutes at 350 degrees F. You can bake yours up to an hour or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. The edges should be slightly brown but not burnt and the loaf should not jiggle when you shake the pan. While my loaf was cooling I prepared my glaze by mixing together 1 cup of powdered sugar with 2-3 tablespoons of lemon juice. I like to mix my juice into my powdered sugar 1/2 tablespoon at a time. This type of glaze quickly gets too watery and it is way easier to make it wetter than drier so just add the lemon juice in very slowly. 

This is the loaf with the piped butter. 

    I waited until my loaf was totally cool before I drizzled my glaze on top and it turned out so tasty! Although it is not exactly the Starbucks lemon loaf I think it is very comparable and personally I think its even better! Not to mention, there are way less ingredients. 

    How did this recipe work for you? What copycat should I make next? Leave me a comment!