If the icing is just too much for you, by all means don’t ice it – even plain, it’s still elegant. I must however note the importance of real, unsalted, butter, not margarine for this, and fresh lemon juice makes a world of difference; the plastic yellow stuff from your grocer is really substandard. This recipe yields 2 loaves of delicious, aromatic bread.
Batter:
2 sticks softened butter
2 cups sugar
4 extra large eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
3/4 cup butter milk or soured milk
1 tsp. pure vanilla (not imitation, please)
Icing Glaze – if you wish:
2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
3 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 Tbsp. milk
Whisk/blend all these together; add more milk if too thick; sugar if too thin
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and grease 2 loaf pans. In a large bowl, cream the butter & sugar until fluffy – this takes about 5 minutes with a mixer. Scrape down the bowl a few times during mixing. Add eggs, one at a time and mix well after each.
In a separate large bowl, whisk/sift the flour, powder, soda and salt. In another smaller bowl, mix together the lemon juice, buttermilk and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients alternately to the butter and sugar batter, mixing well between and scraping down the bowl a few times.
Divide the batter between the 2 pans and bake for about 1 hour – maybe only 45 minutes – or until a toothpick comes out clean. Place on racks to cool for 10 minutes, then invert back onto rack. Cool completely then glaze or just dust with powdered sugar.