Homey Lemon Bread

There are countless recipes for breakfast breads. After tinkering around with various flavors and styles, I came up with this one which I really like. Rich from the honey, a nice zip of lemon, poppy seeds for fun, and easy to make!

• 1 stick of unsalted, softened butter
• 1/2 cup of honey (I use Grade A Clover honey)
• 2 eggs
• zest of 1 lemon (I like a coarse zest, so you get nice bites of it throughout the bread, just be careful not to  get into the white pith)
• 1/2 cup of lemon juice (you'll probably need a little bit more than the juice you can get out of the lemon you just zested)
• 2 cups basic white flour
• 1 tbsp poppy seeds (optional, but recommended)
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350. Cream butter and honey together. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well. Add lemon zest and lemon juice, mix well. Mix all dry ingredients together and then add to wet ingredients in 3 portions, mixing well each time. Pour/spoon batter into a buttered bread tin (I believe they're roughly 8.5 x 5 x 2.5 - I never remember the exact proportions). Place tin on a sheet and bake in preheated oven about 45 to 50 minutes, til top is golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool a few minutes, remove from tin and let further cool on a rack. If you can control the urge to dig in, wrap it in plastic or foil once fully cool and let it sit til the next day before enjoying.

Variations: try 3/4 of a cup of chopped walnuts or pecans instead of poppy seeds. I also would like to try using the zest of 1/2 an orange and 1/2 cup of orange juice in place of lemon. With that, I think I would take 3/4 cup whole cranberries (fresh or frozen) and pulse them in a food processor with a tbsp of sugar and use that in place of poppy seeds or nuts. I'll try it and let you know!
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