Lemon Poppy Seed Bread

The Lemon Poppy Seed Bread is my second favourite after Banana Bread. It’s perfect as a breakfast or lunch snack, tastes great with tea or coffee and has the soft consistency that lasts over few days after baking. 

When looking for a simple dessert options at first I craved for poppy seeds and wasn’t sure how the combination with lemons will turn out. It was definitely a good call as the mix of sweet & sour in this case is well balanced. The lemon zest gives it nice body and doesn’t overwhelm with the first bite. The poppy seeds on the other hand add to the texture and taste. 

Quick intro  

How long do you need to make the lemon poppy seed bread? Around an hour and 15 minutes. The preparations take ca. 20 minutes (depending if you use a mixer or combine the ingredients with a spoon by hand). Rest of the time is baking.  What do you start with? My advice is to take the butter out of the fridge earlier to have an easier time mixing it with sugar. If it’s too late and your butter is hard as a rock you can put it to a microwave for up to a minute and that should do the work. 

Preparing lemons

Second ingredient that you can prep before mixing the batter is getting lemon zest and lemon juice ready. If you don’t have a microplane use a regular box grater. The small holes on the narrow side of the box – to be precise. Remember to grate only the yellow part of the skin, not the white pith underneath. The zest is needed at the very beginning when combining butter and sugar. That’s why it’s so convenient to prep it first to mix all 3 ingredients without interruption for zesting 😉 For lemon juice – if you don’t have a juicer – cut the fruit into half and use a spoon to squeeze out the juice. Stick it in the middle of the lemon flesh and make circles until all juice is out. Make sure to pick any seeds out! 

The rest of the recipe is very straight forward so go ahead and check the steps below to make your own Lemon Poppy Seed Bread!