Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Lemon Blueberry Bread

Clearing my pantry : dried blueberries. I made this bread many months ago, when I found a small pack of dried blueberries in my fridge that I have completely forgotten about. Browsed thru some of  my bread books for a recipe and so happy to see that I have the exact amount of 2/3 cup for this recipe! If you're looking for a sweet (well, slightly sweet) bread that you can enjoy on its own or with a spread of butter, this bread would be a lovely one to try. It is a nice, soft,  no-fuss, simple sweet bread to be enjoyed with a cup of tea.


This bread was meant to be baked in the bread machine, of course as usual, I use the bread machine to do the kneading and then shape it into a loaf and finish off the baking in my oven. The stars in this bread are obviously lemons and dried blueberries. According to the book, in order to avoid staining the dough with the colour of blueberries, dried blueberries are used, as you can see from the photos above, even though I've used dried blueberries, a few minutes after I've added them in, I saw the dough turning from white to the tinge of blue as the machine continues to  knead the dough. But then, I'm not concerned with that. And it smells really lemony nice while the bread is being proved in the bread machine.



I used a 9x5-inch loaf pan to bake the loaf for 35 minutes at 175C .



A lovely bread, with specks of lemon zest in every slice. Soft, moist and good enough eaten on its own. And it stays soft too the next day, just wrap it tightly with plastic wrap and place in an airtight container.


I'm sharing this with :
See Ya In The Gumbo hosted by Ms. enPlace
Tea Time Treats hosted by Lavender and Lovage and What Kate Baked



Lemon Blueberry Bread
(adapted from : "The Artisan Bread Machine" by Judith Fertig)
Makes 1 loaf (750gm)
2/3 cup milk
3 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp grated lemon zest
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 large egg, beaten
1 large egg yolk, beaten
2-3/4 cups all-purpose flour (I use bread flour)
1-1/2 tsp instant or bread machine yeast
2/3 cup dried blueberries

  1. In a small saucepan, scald milk, over medium-high heat until small bubbles form around the edges. Remove from heat and stir in butter and sugar. Tansfer to the bread pan and let cool to lukewarm (between 86F and 95F/30C and 35C).
  2. Add salt, lemon zest, lemon juice and eggs to the bread pan. Spoon flour on top of liquid. Add yeast. Place blueberries in the dispenser (or add at the "add ingredient" or "mix in" signal).
  3. Select the Sweet or Fruit & Nut cycle and press Start. When the cycle is finished, transfer the loaf to a wire rack and let cool for 1 hour.

Kitchen Flavour's notes :
~ I use bread flour instead of AP.
~ Follow instructions up to step 2, select Basic Dough cycle (my machine takes 1hour 35 minutes for this cycle, first rise in machine and punch down by machine), remove dough to a lightly floured work surface, dough is slightly sticky, just sprinkle lightly with flour, roll out to 9" square and roll up dough like a swiss roll. Place in a greased 9"x5" loaf pan. Cover with a lightly greased plastic cling wrap loosely and leave to rise about 30 minutes until risen, about 1-1/2 inch above pan level. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 175C.
~ Bake for about 35 minutes until done. 

#10/100

24 comments:

  1. That bread looks deliciously soft :) Love the added blueberries . Another bread recipe to steal :D Thanks , Joyce !

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  2. Love this beautiful soft loaf, Joyce. I guess fresh blueberries would be too watery for bread, so dried ones work best. Funny thing is the dried ones are more expensive than fresh ones I think.

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  3. i honestly don't think you can have blueberry bread or muffins without the flavor of lemon! they just go so perfectly together! Love your bread

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  4. Yum! My fridge has lots of dried raisins that I have yet used. Now I know how to finish them. thanks ;-)

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  5. Lemon and blueberries, nice combo, and the bread looks awesome..

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  6. Bread looks gorgeous, with some jam i can have it happily for my breakfast.

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  7. Joyce, I want to tell you that I baked the Cold Oven Cream Cheese Pound Cake this evening and thought that today is 22nd Jan and I still have tomorrow to post it, anywhere, nevermind, I won't have enough time to update my post tonight! It is a great recipe and my hubby really loves this cake. He said this is a real cake to him becoz he always says that chiffon is so light and soft that after eating it, it feels nothing, haha! Oops, talking too much of irrelevant things again! Love your bread. I have a punnet of fresh blueberry and still a bag of fresh lemon but no mood to make bread these days, hehehe!

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    1. Joyce, just saw your message! Are you sure you can do that becoz I don't want you to simply break your rule you know. I was thinking if I miss this, I will submit for Sonia's CNY Delights 2013 becoz this is a great recipe and I made mine in cupcake sizes, if I'm in Malaysia, I will definitely make them for my friends for CNY! Let me know, thanks, I will draft it tonight & finish it by tomorrow.

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  8. You usually see this flavor combo in muffins. What a great idea to use it in bread!

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  9. Hmm never had blueberry bread.. nampak sedap.

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  10. This bread looks fabulous ! Yuuum, in a huge cup of coffee :)

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  11. reminded me of my breadmaker which is under utilised now! i think it's calling me, " hey, use me! use me!" lemon and blueberry..nice combination !

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  12. Just gorgeous. I love slightly sweet breads, so this looks like it would be perfect. And isn't lemon and blueberry the best combination? Thank you for sharing! I hope you are having a lovely week!

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  13. Looks delicious, is my kind of flavours. I must try it

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  14. Hi Joyce,

    This lemon blueberry loaf looks very delicious and perfect for a fruity breakfast. This recipe looks very versatile which means that I can substitute dried blueberries with other berries... Yum!

    Zoe

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  15. This looks and sounds delicious. I'd love to have a slice or two. I hope all is well. Blessings...Mary

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  16. Joyce, I will love this bread because I like blueberies very much. Only thing is that they are costly but I do buy the frozen or dried ones when I feel like pampering myself. Haven't gotten down to trying to bake bread yet but I think that will happen soon :)

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  17. I can just take these 3 slides with a cup of coffee. Nice, Joyce!

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  18. Lemon and blueberries! What an interesting combination! I always stock up a lot of blueberries whenever I see them on sale, will definitely try this out when I stock up my next batch of blueberries. Yours look absolutely delicious!

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  19. I really like using blueberries in bakes. I shd look out for dried ones, I usually use fresh ones and they're rather expensive.

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  20. Hi Joyce, this is perfect, i was just thinking that i need to broaden my variety of sweet fruit bread, and then i see your lemon blueberry bread :) whenever i see blueberries on sale, i will stock up, this recipe is definitely going on top of my bread list , thanks!

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  21. Blueberries are my favorite fruit and you can't beat the blueberry-lemon combo. I like the way the blueberries stain the bread a bit--pretty! Thanks for linking this week, Joyce.

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  22. This sounds wonderful! Time to find some dried blueberries.

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  23. Love the soft texture of this fresh lemony blueberry bread! Would love to have some now! hehehehehe

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