Lemon Coconut Tea Bread Recipe

When life gives me lemons… I get all excited ’cause I think they’re delicious. Especially paired with coconut in this tasty treat I have dubbed “tea bread” so we can eat it for breakfast and not have to say “we had cake for breakfast.” Cake for breakfast happens more than I want to admit around here, don’t get judgey.

I started with one lemon, zesting it zestily, yielding about 3 teaspoons of bright yellow zest, and then juiced the sucker. The juice and 1 teaspoon of zest were set aside for later usage. I don’t actually have a zester and when I say “I zested this fruit item,” I actually mean that “I carefully peeled the zest off with a paring knife and chopped it up very finely.” In the interest of full disclosure.

Step 2, I set the oven to preheat (350f) and prepared a 9×5 loaf pan using my favorite new sweet baking trick- dusting the greased pan with sugar instead of flour (now it’s our secret, wink).

The dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt) get sifted together…

Butter is creamed with sugar and zest. Vanilla extract and eggs are added, with a good beating betwixt each addition, about 20 seconds.

Next, approximately 1/3 of the milk is added and beaten in, followed by 1/2 of the dry ingredients mixture, another third of the milk, the rest of the drysies, and the last of the milk, and, finally, the coconut. I used 1/4 coconut shreds but had pre-toasted another few TBS for topping, so I added a few pinches of the toasty ones to the batter for a little sumtin-sumtin extra, but it is by no means necessary.

The batter was added to the specially prepared (wink) loaf pan and placed in the preheated oven where the magic happened over the course of about 55 minutes:

The loaf was left to cool its heels (ahahahaha – bread pun) in the pan on the rack for about 15 minutes before being turned out onto the rack to cool completely in anticipation of it’s crowning delicious lemon glaze. Took about an hour.

Coconut is toasted thusly: sprinkled onto a sheet pan and set in a hot oven and very carefully monitored until it starts to turn brown.

It goes from brown to black in approximately a nano-second, so be careful.

The glaze is simple, all it takes is the juice from the lemon, the leftover zest, and about a cup of powdered sugar per TBS of liquid.

These three ingredients are whisked together to form the desired consistency and then drizzled over the loaf. The toasted coconut should be sprinkled on at this point, before the glaze sets.

Once the glaze hardens, you’re cake-for-breakfast, or, as I like to call it “tea bread”, is ready to eat. Maybe share it, maybe not.

LEMON COCONUT TEA BREAD

Servings

Instructions

I started with one lemon, zesting it zestily, yielding about 3 teaspoons of bright yellow zest, and then juiced the sucker. The juice and 1 teaspoon of zest were set aside for later usage. I don’t actually have a zester and when I say “I zested this fruit item,” I actually mean that “I carefully peeled the zest off with a paring knife and chopped it up very finely.” In the interest of full disclosure.
Step 2, I set the oven to preheat (350f) and prepared a 9×5 loaf pan using my favorite new sweet baking trick- dusting the greased pan with sugar instead of flour (now it’s our secret, wink).
The dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt) get sifted together……
Butter is creamed with sugar and zest. Vanilla extract and eggs are added, with a good beating betwixt each addition, about 20 seconds.
Next, approximately 1/3 of the milk is added and beaten in, followed by 1/2 of the dry ingredients mixture, another third of the milk, the rest of the drysies, and the last of the milk, and, finally, the coconut. I used 1/4 coconut shreds but had pre-toasted another few TBS for topping, so I added a few pinches of the toasty ones to the batter for a little sumtin-sumtin extra, but it is by no means necessary.
The batter was added to the specially prepared (wink) loaf pan and placed in the preheated oven where the magic happened over the course of about 55 minutes:
The loaf was left to cool it’s heels (ahahahaha bread pun) in the pan on the rack for about 15 minutes before being turned out onto the rack to cool completely in anticipation of it’s crowning delicious lemon glaze. Took about an hour.
Coconut is toasted thusly: sprinkled onto a sheet pan and set in a hot oven and very carefully monitored until it starts to turn brown.
It goes from brown to black in approximately a nano-second, so be careful.
The glaze is simple, all it takes is the juice from the lemon, the leftover zest, and about a cup of powdered sugar per TBS of liquid.
These three ingredients are whisked together to form the desired consistency and then drizzled over the loaf. The toasted coconut should be sprinkled on at this point, before the glaze sets.
Once the glaze hardens, you’re cake-for-breakfast, or, as I like to call it “tea bread”, is ready to eat. Maybe share it, maybe not.

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Lemon Coconut Tea Bread