Olive Oil Lemon Loaf

Murray picked a ton of fresh strawberries from the garden & I knew a lemon loaf would be a delicious accompaniment to those sweet tender strawberries!

I wanted to make a non-dairy lemon loaf so I substituted olive oil for the butter & water for the milk! Turned out great!

The recipe I used, whisk i adapted, was from Chatelaine.com. Classic Lemon Loaf Recipe

I was not sure if the cake would turn out as moist as it does when butter is used but it did! Since I was using water & not milk, I added extra olive oil to replace the fat in the milk

I also wanted to mix this cake quickly by hand …just a bowl & a spoon. Having olive oil as the fat made this super easy since I did not have to cream the butter with the sugar…not that it is difficult to do that, just the olive oil mixed with sugar very easily

A lemon glaze is brushed on while the cake is warm which makes a delicious cake topping.

Here is the recipe  …inspired by Classic Lemon Loaf Recipe…Chatalaine.com

This recipe makes one loaf cake

Ingredients

For the Cake

1 3/4 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp lemon zest

1/4 cup + 3 tbsp olive oil

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2/3 cup water

For the Glaze

1 cup icing sugar

3 tbsp lemon juice

Method

Preheat oven to 350f

Grease a loaf pan

The first thing to do is get the lemon ready… zest the lemon before squeezing it…it is difficult to zest a lemon once it has been squeezed…So, zest the lemon then squeeze it and set the lemon juice aside until you will use it to make the lemon glaze

1.  Mix the flour, baking powder, salt & lemon zest together & set aside
2. In a large enough mixing bowl, beat the oil & sugar together until well mixed….I did this by hand but you can use a mixer if you want
3. Add the eggs & vanilla, mixing well
4. Add the water…the batter is really thin now but mix it well
5. Add the flour mixture ..mix until you have a smooth batter
6. Put the cake batter into the prepared loaf pan
7. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 50-60 minutes or until the cake is cooked completely so when you use a cake tester, it comes out clean.
8. While the cake is baking… mix up the glaze…
9. Sift the icing sugar into a bowl to remove any lumps & add the lemon juice. Mix well & set aside
10. Remove the cake from the oven. Let it cool very briefly, just long enough to turn the cake out onto a cooling rack  *** put a piece of was paper or some kind of disposable paper under the  cooling rack since the glaze runs off the cake onto the counter…which happened to me..it is easy to clean up though.
11. While the cake is still warm, brush the glaze on the cake & let the glaze run down the sides of the cake
12. Let the cake cool before cutting

Enjoy!