Lemon Iced Tea Loaf

End of March and spring is fully here — dogwoods in bloom, the Bradford pear trees that smell like something you can't quite name but that means March, the air soft and warm in the afternoons before it gets serious about summer. I like this stretch of weeks. It has a quality of openness that the rest of the year does not quite have — not the anticipation of fall semester or the end-of-year push of June, just a running-forward feeling with nothing immediately due.

Eighth grade is winding down, which means high school is winding up. I have been accepted to the AP track at Scotlandville Magnet High School for fall, which was the plan, which means the plan is proceeding. I am going to take AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP English Language, and regular pre-calc, which is as much as they will let me take AP in ninth grade. Jada has her own plan which overlaps with mine significantly — we will share two classes, possibly three. This is important to me. Jada is important to me. Some things you want to carry forward into the new thing.

I told MawMaw Shirley I was going to high school in the fall and she said she knew that, she had known since first grade when I came home one day and told her exactly what I was going to study and in what order. I said I did not remember saying that at age six. She said I did. She said I always had a plan. I said was that good or was it a lot. She said it was both and both were fine.

Mama made lemon pound cake this week for no particular reason other than that it was spring and the lemons were on sale. The kitchen smelled like lemon and butter and sugar for two hours and the cake was dense and golden and tart and sweet in the right proportions, which is what a pound cake should be. I ate two slices. I wrote down the recipe. Spring tastes like lemon pound cake.

Mama didn’t make the cake for any occasion — just spring, and lemons on sale, and that being enough of a reason. I think that’s the right instinct. The Lemon Iced Tea Loaf I’ve been making since is close to what came out of her kitchen that afternoon: dense and golden, tart where it should be tart, with a glaze that catches the light the way the dogwoods do right now. You make it when the plan is going well and you want something that tastes like that feeling.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 55 min | Total Time: 1 hr 10 min | Servings: 10

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
2 tablespoons fresh lemon zest (from about 2 large lemons)
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup whole milk
1/4 cup strong-brewed black tea, cooled
For the lemon glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
2–3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon strong-brewed black tea, cooled

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x5-inch loaf pan and line it with parchment paper, leaving an overhang on the long sides for easy lifting.
Mix dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and granulated sugar with a hand or stand mixer on medium-high speed for 3–4 minutes until light and fluffy. Scrape down the sides as needed.
Add eggs and lemon. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each. Add the lemon zest and lemon juice and mix until combined.
Combine wet and dry. Stir the milk and cooled tea together in a small cup. With the mixer on low, alternate adding the flour mixture and the milk-tea mixture to the batter, beginning and ending with the flour. Mix just until no dry streaks remain — do not overmix.
Bake. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake for 50–58 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the top is deep golden. If the top browns too quickly, tent loosely with foil after 35 minutes.
Cool. Let the loaf cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then lift out using the parchment overhang and transfer to a wire rack. Cool completely before glazing.
Make the glaze. Whisk together the powdered sugar, lemon juice, and cooled tea until smooth and pourable. Adjust consistency with a little more lemon juice or powdered sugar as needed.
Glaze and serve. Drizzle the glaze over the cooled loaf and let it set for 10 minutes before slicing. Slice thick — this is a pound cake, not a sandwich loaf.

Nutrition (per serving)

Lemon Iced Tea Loaf — The Cake That Tastes Like Spring Plans Coming Together