MY MUSE BOX - Glazed Lemon Bread - A Christmas Tale

When Vi (“Mom” to me – “Auntie Vi” to almost everyone else) left her cozy home in the Connecticut “boonies” to move to California and closer to her kids (my brother, Bob, me and our spouses), she had two choices: Los Angeles or Sacramento. She liked LA (somewhat), but palm trees just weren’t her “thing.” Sacramento was more of a fit – more “east coast.”

She loved the Capitol building and the parks with more variety of trees than any other city except Paris. She loved that the city had a “winter” (sort of) and that the leaves turned beautiful colors. And she loved the fact that she could live nicely there on her fixed income. So she left her beloved New England where she grew up and where she had moved back to after years in New York City. She left the boutiques she ran and the friends she had made, packed up her belongings and headed west.

And though she was hours away from me, she’d come down to LA (Studio City) for two extended visits – summer and winter. Her winter pilgrimage included the Christmas holiday and being a part of our annual Christmas Eve party.

During her first Christmas here, a tradition was started. She loved to cook, so she became my husband’s sous chef as he prepared all sorts of dishes for the party… but she alone made the glazed lemon breads we’d give out as “favors” to our guests.

T’was one night before Christmas Eve and all through the kitchen husband and Vi were stirring… and chopping, dicing, mixing and blending. Vi was preparing to make her batch of little lemon breads, when my husband chopped and diced his “baby” finger. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

Never one to overreact, Vi calmly grabbed a clean dish towel and applied it with pressure to husband’s finger as she and I ‘discussed’ whether I should drive him to the St. Joe's ER. I was for it. She didn’t think it was necessary. Husband didn’t know what to do as we had usurped the conversation. He may have had an opinion as his finger bled and throbbed, but he couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

As the towel became more colorfully red, I made the decision to ER it. Husband was relieved. As we were leaving, Vi reassured him that she’d seen worse over her many years and that he wouldn’t bleed to death… that he’d be fine and that she’d continue the last minute cooking tasks while he was gone. The party must go on.

By the time we reached the ER, the bleeding had stopped – but to be on the safe side, the doc gave him three stitches so it wouldn’t start again. Husband had a new Christmas memory and a red badge of cooking courage… not to mention, he got to keep the tip of his baby finger.

By the time we arrived back home a couple of hours later, Vi had finished the chopping and dicing and had made three batches (9 little loaves) of her lemon breads. As Hemingway would say: glaze under pressure. That was Vi.

It’s been a few Christmases without Vi now, but husband continues the lemon bread tradition. Join us in that tradition.

                                        GLAZED LEMON BREAD

Ingredients:

1/3 melted butter

1-1/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

¼ teaspoon almond extract

1-1/2 cup sifted flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

½ cup milk

1 tablespoon granted lemon rind (peel)

½ cup chopped nuts (Vi used walnuts)

3 tablespoon lemon juice

Directions:

Blend well the butter and 1 cup sugar;  beat in eggs one at a time.  Add almond extract.

Sift together dry ingredients;  add to the egg mixture alternately w/ milk. 

Blend just to mix.  Fold in peel and nuts.

Turn into greased, oven-proof glass loaf baking dish (8-1/2” x 4-1/2” x 2-3/4” pan).  Bake in slow oven (325 degrees) about 70 minutes or until testing the center w/ a toothpick comes our clean.  If you bake bread in a metal loaf pan, use a moderate over (350 degrees).

Mix lemon juice and ¼ cup sugar;  immediately spoon the loaf when you take it out of the oven.

Cool 10 minutes.  Remove from pan and cool on a rack.  Do NOT cut for 24 hours so that it slices easily.  However, Vi used to slice hers as soon as the loaf cooled and it sliced "just fine."

Makes 1 loaf.

If using those cute little loaf pans, these ingredients will make three little loaves and should bake about 50 – 55 minutes.