Lemon-Chia Seed Tea Bread

More lemon recipes anyone?  Apparently, we're on a lemon kick here.  First, the lemon-ricotta cookies with lemon glaze and now this.  A delicious, tender quick bread with just the right amount of lemon.  Can we still be friends?

I actually got the inspiration for lemon-chia seed bread from the back of my bag of chia seeds.  It was for a vegan recipe which I'm interested to try some time.  Just not this time.  The day I made this bread, I didn't want to get too experimental.  I wanted to take a lemon-poppy seed bread recipe I knew I'd like and just use the chia seeds in place of the poppy seeds.

In the end, the bread was delicious.  The chia seeds were a little less crunchy than poppy seeds, but they were still plenty crunchy for me.  The flavor was different than poppy seeds, too, though not in a way that detracted from the bread at all.  In my opinion, the chia seeds were a great move--they have much better health benefits than poppy seeds and I already had them on hand :-)  Of course, if you'd rather use poppy seeds please do.  I'm sure you'll like the bread either way.

Lemon-Chia Seed Tea Bread

adapted from epicurious

Ingredients:

zest and juice of 2 large lemons, divided

1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

6 TBSP unsalted butter, softened

1 c. granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1/2 c. milk (almond, coconut, rice, dairy, buttermilk)

2 TBSP chia or poppy seeds

1/4 c. confectioners' sugar

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.  Spray or butter and flour one 9x5x3-inch loaf pan or 2-3 mini loaf pans (not glass), knocking out any excess flour.

2.  Finely grate enough zest from lemons to measure 2 tsp. and squeeze enough juice to measure about 1/4 cup. 

3.  Into a bowl sift together flour, baking powder, and salt.

4.  In a large bowl with an electric mixer beat together butter, granulated sugar, and lemon zest until light and fluffy.  Beat in eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. 

5.  With mixer on low speed add flour mixture and milk alternately in batches, beginning and ending with flour mixture and beating just until batter is combined well.  Beat in seeds and 1 TBSP lemon juice and pour batter into prepared loaf pans, smoothing tops. Bake loaves in middle of oven until a tester comes out clean, about 1 hour for a full-sized loaf or 40-45 minutes for mini loaves.  Check for doneness with a skewer or toothpick.

6.  While loaves are baking, in a small bowl stir together 2 TBSP of remaining lemon juice and confectioners' sugar to form a glaze.

7.  Cool loaves in pans on a rack 15 minutes. Run a thin knife around edges of pans and invert bread onto rack. Turn right side up and pierce top all over with a thin skewer. Repeatedly brush lemon glaze over tops of loaves until all of glaze is absorbed.

8.  Cool loaves completely. Bread keeps, wrapped in wax paper, in an airtight container at room temperature 4 days or, wrapped in foil and frozen, 1 month.