Every time my friends and I go to Starbucks, one of us gets a piece of their lemon bread. A four-dollar and seventy-five-cent lemon bread. I think it’s pretty delicious, but for that price? I could be getting myself things more substantial than lemon bread. Just like for the cake-pops, I’m going to be making them and determining for you: should I just waste my money or attempt to try for myself? And no, my answer isn’t automatically going to be to try for yourself. This recipe is from Averie Cooks, and it’s titled: “The Best Lemon Loaf (Better-Than-Starbucks Copycat) so I assumed it would be the best recipe for this attempt.
Lemon Loaf
- 3 large eggs
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup (8 ounces) sour cream or Greek yogurt
- ½ cup canola or vegetable oil
- 2 tablespoons lemon zest
- 1 to 2 tablespoons lemon extract, to taste (not teaspoons)*
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt, or to taste
Lemon Glaze
- 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
- 3 tablespoons lemon juice, or as necessary for consistency
I got the ingredients I didn’t already have at home, and I made it. Now, I had a lot of trial and error this time around. I used the only regular flour I had, but then, before I mixed it, I realized it was bad. So I got a hand-held sifter and got it out of the batter. I’m very confident in my sifting skills, and I got it all out. But even the gluten-free flour I had in the house (because my mom is gf and df) was ALSO past the ‘best by’ date. So, I had only one other option: the random box of cake flour I had from a while ago, that expired in a couple of days. I figured that it may even make it better.
The cooking process was a bit of a problem, too; for some reason, my oven doesn’t do a good job of baking things evenly, so the middle was raw. I had to re-cook it three times, and it resulted in the edges being dry and grainy, but the middle being practically perfect and moist. This wasn’t a complete fail, but it definitely wasn’t a win. I’m starting to consider if I’m the problem – why all of my baking adventures never turn out right. For me, I think I’ll stick to wasting my money and buying the Starbucks lemon bread, but maybe you should try it yourself. Who knows – well, I do. At this point, I’m sure anyone could be a better baker than me.
