When Life Gives You Lemons

It's that time again! "What?" you ask.
Time for another life enhancing recipe inspired by my art.

Yes...it was just a week ago that I posted my first recipe,
Lady Luck Fortune Cookies and now you will be stunned to behold my Out On A Limb Lemon Loaf.

It was just this morning that I made this delicious lemon loaf and truth be told, after I ate one piece (OK...two pieces) I realized I had to put the rest of it in the freezer or I would feel compelled to eat it all. And the only thing wrong with that would be the very high calorie count. I don't have the exact calorie count, but if you look at the ingredients...butter, sugar, flour...well you do the math. It ain't diet food. It is however a blast of lemony sweet goodness.

Here is the piece that inspired this transcendent loaf.

And now for the story:

Out On A Limb Lemon Loaf

She always wanted to live in the limbs of a lemon tree but the closest she ever came was during an eco-vacation in Costa Rica. She only spent one night up in the room nestled in the branches of a tree high above the forest floor because as soon as she got into the rickety wooden bed, the entire
room filled with big black spiders. It may have been
nothing more than a bad dream but the next night she moved to one of the ground floor cabanas at the resort. That's where she met Raul who brought big jars of lemonade every afternoon to all the ladies at the resort. She assumed he worked there but she was never sure. Soon they were hiking through tropical forests and rafting down raging rivers together. Her two week vacation extended to a two-month stay but after a while she noticed that Raul seemed more thrilled by their mutual adventures than he was with their quiet moments alone. When he eventually ran off with a young Dutch woman with long bright blond hair she felt relieved and went back to Mendocino. There she renewed her correspondence course in modern architecture but noticed that all the buildings she designed had tall towers that allowed you to look out over the tops of trees. It was time to find a new career but with so many interests it was hard to decide on just the right one. Should she be a forest ranger, a writer, a folksinger, an artist? She was still contemplating the many options available to her as she celebrated the coming of a new year at her friend Barbara's New Year's Eve party. After a bountiful buffet of brownies, blinis, and banana bread, everyone danced until midnight. When Barbara passed out her fabulous home made fortune cookies, she was anxious to find out out what fate had in store for her. On the little slip of paper inside the cookie she found a message she was sure was meant just for her. It read: If you get a lucky lemon never suck it dry. Shortly afterward she went into business baking and selling scrumptious lemon loaf and never looked back.

The recipe:

1/2 c. butter
1 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 c. flour
1 ts. baking powder
1/4 ts. salt
1 ts. lemon extract
1 ts. vanilla extract
1/4 c. milk
1/4 c. sour cream
granted rind of one lemon

Cream together butter and sugar and add eggs one at a time and beat until light and fluffy. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt and add half the flour mixture, the extracts, the lemon rind and the milk and mix well. Add the last half of the flour mixture and the sour cream and mix well again. Pour into a buttered and floured loaf pan and bake in a 350 degree oven for about an hour or until a skewer inserted into the the middle of the loaf comes out clean. Cool on a rack, slice and eat.

This makes a smallish, dense, not very lofty loaf that is super moist. I've seen lots of recipes that call for a glaze on top of the loaf, but I think it is best not to mess with perfection. Sprinkle a little confectioners sugar on top if you must.