Blueberry-Lemon Poppy seed Bread

This summer brought a lot of great times at the Farmer’s Market. Seeing the amazingly plump blueberries from a local farm inspired me to share the recipe for blueberry lemon poppy seed bread.

This bread is absolutely delicious for breakfast or any time of the day for a snack. It comes out moist and fluffy. This recipe calls for buttermilk, which I don’t always have on hand, so I use a mixture of buttermilk culture and water. The culture is added in with dry ingredients, and the water is added where the liquid buttermilk would be.

The first thing to note before you start mixing ingredients together is the temperature of your ingredients. The batter will come together best if all ingredients are near the same temperature, so be sure to allow your refrigerated ingredients come to room temperature.

Cream together the butter and sugar. This mixture comes together more evenly and quickly if the butter is cut into pieces. I cut a stick of butter into about 8 or so pieces.

Once the mixture is light and fluffy, add the 4 eggs, vanilla, and lemon zest.

While wet ingredients are mixing, combine the flour, nutmeg, poppy seeds, baking soda, salt and buttermilk culture if using.

Combine dry ingredients alternately with buttermilk (or water if using buttermilk culture) to mixed wet ingredients.

Once well mixed, fold in blueberries. I recommend doing this by hand to avoid mushing the berries.

Transfer bread batter to two prepared loaf pans. Bake for 1 hour at 325º F/ 163º C. Check with a toothpick along the center of the loaf. If the toothpick comes out of the loaf without any batter on it, it is done.

Allow to cool for about 5 minutes before turning out of pan. Transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely if you can resist cutting in before it cools 🙂

Blueberry-Lemon Poppy seed Bread

Recipe by The Bread Advocate

Prep time

20

minutes

Cooking time

1

hour 

Ingredients

• 4 cups/ 1 1/2 lb/ 563 gm All-purpose flour

• 1 teaspoon Nutmeg

• 1/2 cup/ 2.5 ounces/ 11 grams Poppy seeds

• 2 cups/ 15.8 ounces/ 448 grams Sugar

• 2 teaspoons Vanilla extract

• 1 1/3 cup/ 10.5 fl ounces Buttermilk
  Alternative: 5 Tablespoons/ 9.4 ounces/ 265 grams buttermilk culture & 1 1/3 cup water

• 2 teaspoons Baking soda

• 1/2 teaspoon Salt

• 1 cup/ 225 grams Butter

• 4 Eggs

• Zest of 2 Lemons

• 3 cups/ 14 ounces/ 400 grams Blueberries

Directions

• Cream together sugar and butter. Add eggs, vanilla and zest.
• While wet ingredients are mixing, combine the flour, nutmeg, poppy seeds, baking soda, salt and buttermilk culture if using.
• Combine dry ingredients alternately with buttermilk (or water if using buttermilk culture) to mixed wet ingredients.
• Fold in blueberries and transfer bread batter to prepared loaf pans.
• Bake for 1 hour at 325º Fahrenheit/ 163º Celsius
• Check middle of loaf with clean toothpick. If toothpick comes out of bread without batter stuck to it, the bread is done.
• Allow to cool for about 5 minutes before turning out of pan. Transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely if you can resist cutting in before it cools 🙂
• Enjoy!

Recipe Video

This recipe comes from my days working in a local bakery. Unfortunately, since the bakery is now closed I am unaware of the original author.