Lime Bread

I had a lot of limes leftover from Cinco de Mayo.  Apparently we didn't make as many margaritas as I expected.  So what do you do when life hands you limes (but fails to deliver on the tequila)?  You make lime bread!  This is a tart bread, but soft and cakey, and lots of lime flavor.  Lime is well complimented by cranberry, white chocolate, and coconut, among other things, so if you want to cut some of the tart lime flavor, consider adding a cup of mix-ins, which will also be a nice variation on the texture, as well as the taste.  Some of this lime bread went to work for a meeting, some stayed home for Dave, Madaline and Ernie to enjoy, and the rest is in the freezer (probably until the next time I see Cindy--she'll probably love this stuff).

For this recipe, I made some adjustments to the Lemon Bread recipe I used a few months ago from Lind at Stick to Your Hips.  While that recipe is great, I wanted to experiment with substituting sour cream and applesauce for some of the butter and thought this would be a good opportunity since I could compare.  The results were pretty awesome--a slightly softer bread, but otherwise I didn't notice the missing fat.  Again, I went with two big loaves (8 x 4 and 9 x 5), but mini loaves would be great since this packs a lot of lime in it (a result of wanting to use all my extra limes).  One thing I might change is that the lime glaze--more like a syrup--didn't complement this bread the way the lemon glaze added to the lemon bread.  Instead, I'd suggest adding a bit more powdered sugar and making a thin glaze that will set, rather than the syrup version of a glaze.  The recipe below is for the syrup-style, but let me know if you do it differently!




Lime Bread

Ingredients

1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup sour cream
3 Tablespoons applesauce
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 Tablespoons lime juice
3 Tablespoons freshly grated lime zest
4 eggs
1/2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 cup milk

In a large bowl, cream butter, sour cream, applesauce and sugar until fluffy, scraping sides of bowl as necessary.

Beat in lime juice, zest, eggs, and vanilla until well combined.

In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.

Add flour mixture alternately with milk to butter mixture, beating until just combined after each addition.

Divide batter into 2 greased loaf pans (8 x 4 inch or 9 x 5 inch) and bake at 350 degrees F for 40-50 minutes.

Remove from oven and place pans on a wire rack, leaving loaves in pans.

Confession: This isn't Lime Bread.  I forgot to take a picture, so I'm subbing in the picture of the Lemon Bread since they look pretty much the same to this point.

Glaze

Ingredients

1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup lime juice
1/2 Tablespoon lime zest

In a small bowl, combine powdered sugar, lemon juice and zest until smooth.

Pour over the hot loaves and allow to cool completely before removing from pans.

Makes 2 loaves.

Happy Baking,
The Cookie Princess

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