Blueberry Lemon Quick Bread
Here is Jan Schwartz’s winning blueberry bread recipe. Makes 1 large loaf Lemon sugar topping: 1⁄3 cup sugar 1 1⁄2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest (from 1 lemon)
Bread batter: 2 1⁄2 cups flour 2 1 ⁄2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 2 cups fresh blueberries 1 1⁄8 cups sugar 1⁄2 teaspoon grated lemon zest 2 large eggs 1⁄4 cup (1⁄2 stick) butter 1⁄4 cup vegetable oil 1 cup buttermilk 1 1⁄2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Make lemon sugar topping: Thoroughly mix sugar and lemon zest in a bowl.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees for a metal pan, 335 degrees for glass. Coat bottom only of an 8 1⁄2-by-4 1⁄2-inch metal loaf pan or a 9-by-5-inch glass loaf pan with vegetable oil spray. (See note.)
Make batter: In a large bowl, whisk flour, baking powder and salt together. Gently stir in blueberries to coat.
In a medium bowl, vigorously whisk sugar, lemon zest and eggs until thick. Slowly whisk in butter and oil until combined. In a glass measuring cup or small bowl, whisk buttermilk and vanilla. Stir into egg mixture.
Add egg mixture to flour mixture and gently combine. Batter will be a bit lumpy. Do not overmix.
Transfer mixture to prepared loaf pan. Sprinkle top with lemon sugar topping.
Bake in preheated oven until top cracks and browns slightly and center tests done. According to Schwartz, this will take about 35 minutes or so in a metal pan (but she admitted this was a guess, she just keeps testing). In the glass pan we used for testing, at the lower temperature, it took an hour and 15 minutes.
Cool slightly, then remove from pan to a rack to cool completely.
Note: Schwartz uses a deep, roughly 8 1⁄2-by-4 1⁄2-inch metal loaf pan. When we tested the recipe in a glass pan of the same dimensions, at 350 degrees, the batter ran over the top. The second time, we used a larger, 9-by-5-inch glass loaf pan and lowered the temperature to 335 degrees, which worked fine.