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I love when my friends go through important moments in their lives: some get married, move to a different city, have a major career move or expand their family. This week has been full of blessings and good moments. Between weddings, babies and more happy babies on the way, it definitely is a great last couple of days. For many of those occasions we often get together with friends for a big meal, drinks, of just talk over coffee. This Calamansi Poppy Seed Loaf is perfect for that last one.

At the end of last week, when visiting my grandmother, I ended up getting a big batch of calamansi from her tree. Her garden is beautiful. I have to get there with my camera and share with you all her gorgeous garden. She has a small but very well packed garden, and the calamansi tree in it, gives out the best (and very juicy) fruits I’ve seen. Anyway, we ended up getting close to 5 pounds of fruit.

Since I got the big bag of them, I knew I had a loaf to bake. This loaf gets its citrus flavor from the both the calamansi and lemons, and a slight crunch from the poppy seeds. If you are not familiar with the calamansi, they are small citrus fruits native from Asia. They are grown in southeast Asia, Hawaii, North and Central America. You know they are perfectly ripen when its color changes to a tangerine orange. They are great for agua frescas or juice. Oh! And for a coffee-cake like loaf, it’s perfect! It’s flavor is slightly orangy-sweet, so it balances out the lemon. And the sugar you add on top… takes it out of the park. The sugar sprinkled just before baking helps you get a gorgeous crackled top. This loaf goes perfect with a mid afternoon cup of tea.

Kitty

Tangy Poppy Seed Loaf

Recipe adapted from Cooking Classy
Yields: 1 8×4-inch loaf

Ingredients:
1 ⅔ cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons poppy seeds
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1 tablespoon calamansi zest
½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 eggs
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ cup + 2 tablespoon sour cream
¼ cup whole milk
2 tablespoon fresh calamansi juice
1 tablespoon of sugar, to sprinkle on top of loaf

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line with parchment paper, then grease and flour an 8×4-inch loaf pan, set aside.
2. In a mixing bowl whisk together flour, poppy seeds, baking powder and salt.
3. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter, zest and sugar, until pale and fluffy. Mix in eggs one at a time, then add the vanilla.
4. Whisk together the milk and sour cream.
5. In three additions, add the flour to the mixer, alternating with the milk: ⅓ of the flour mixture, then ½ the milk, ⅓ flour, the remaining milk, the remaining flour and finishing off with the calamansi juice. Make sure not to over beat. You can mix the last steps by hand. Sprinkle the last tablespoon of sugar on top of the loaf.
6. Bake for 45-55 minutes, covering the loaf with foil at the 40-minute mark (don’t let foil touch loaf). Bake until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.
7. After the loaf is baked, remove from oven and allow to cool 5 minutes in its pan, then transfer to a wire rack.
8. Let loaf cool on wire rack then serve.

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This post is also available in / Esta entrada también está disponible en ESPAÑOL (SPANISH)