Mushroom For Learning: March 2013

Something that I absolutely love is bread and carbs!!! If I ever went to rehab for any addiction that would be it!! I know I know... in my last post, I talked about being healthy...well I couldn't resist! Everyone now and then I need something sweet!

So with that being said… I love a nice bread or cake with my coffee. I think I picked up this habit when I was abroad. They always had something sweet or doughy to accompany their coffee, therefore after a year of this exposure, it stuck!! I am not a big fan of the dark roasted coffee from starbucks, however I LOVE adding their very berry cake along with my white chocolate mocha! It is the perfect combination… a nice citrus flavor with the berries and my chocolate coffee!! Who could ask for a better start to a day!!

So being the foodie that I am, I got the craving for something like a very berry cake! I did a lot of internet surfing looking at the various of recipes, looking at ingredients, level of difficulty or complication. –Side note- the one thing I love about cooking is that I know exactly what is going into my food! So I finally found a recipe through pinterest that used yogurt instead of sugar and I thought I can have my cake and eat it to!! So I write everything down on my list to get to the grocery store and I forget to buy the yogurt!!!! Of course…Well I just took this as a sign that this cake was not meant to be healthy, which was fine with me! So after making this discovery I came across a Rachel Ray recipe and that is what I ultimately used! Her recipe did not call for a glaze, but I definitely wanted one. I added that down at the bottom of the recipe!

-Side note- I didn't have a mixer, I just did it by hand and it worked great!!

Lemon Blueberry Bread

Ingredients

· 1 1/2 cups flour, plus 1 tablespoon, divided

· 1 teaspoon baking powder

· 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

· Juice and zest of 1 lemon

· 1 1/2 cups blueberries

· 1/2 cup butter, room temperature

· 1 cup sugar

· 2 eggs

· 1 teaspoon vanilla

· 1/2 cup milk

Preparation

Pre-heat the oven to 350°F and spray a 9-inch x 5-inch x 3-inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray.

In a small bowl, whisk together the 1 1/2 cups flour, baking powder, salt and lemon zest. In a separate small bowl, toss the blueberries with the remaining 1 tablespoon of flour.

With an electric mixer, beat the butter until smooth. Add the sugar and beat for 2-3 minutes, until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, scraping bowl as necessary. Beat in the vanilla and lemon juice. With the mixer on low, alternately add the flour mixture in three additions and the milk in two additions, starting and ending with the flour. Fold in the blueberries by hand. Transfer the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 55-65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. This bread freezes well, wrapped tightly.