Orange Bread

Last weekend, I helped cook an iftaar (breaking the fast) dinner for 200 people along with four other ladies. I had never been apart of such large quantity cooking before so it was really interesting to see the process of familiar recipes and how they change. Instead of a tablespoon of something you put it by the cups and instead of putting cups of something you put it by the pounds. Anyway it was a lot of fun, the food turned out amazing, and after everything was all done and over we had left over food…of course. One of those left over items were oranges so now we have a bunch of oranges sitting at home and I wanted to make something out of it and ran across this orange bread recipe from Simply Recipes. I make their banana bread all the time and absolutely love it, so orange bread sounded like something good to try. The best part is that it’s really light…with only 1/3 cup of butter and 1 cup of yogurt to make it nice and moist.

Orange Bread Recipe (by Simply Recipes)

• 1/3 cup of butter (about 5 1/3 tablespoons)
• 3/4 cup of sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon orange zest
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cup plain yogurt
• 1/2 cup golden raisins, chopped

Optional Glaze

• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon orange juice
• 1/3 cup of powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350°

Butter a loaf pan (I used a 5×9 inch.)  To make it easier to remove the loaf lay down a wide strip of parchment paper on the bottom and up the sides. Butter that as well.

With an electric mixer beat the butter until it becomes fluffy, add the sugar and beat for 2 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time and beat until mixed. Finally beat in the orange zest.

In another bowl whisk the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.

To the butter mixture beat in the yogurt and dry ingredients taking turns, starting with the yogurt. Beat just until its incorporated. Mix in the raisins and pour the batter into the loaf pan. Bake on the middle rack for about 45-50 minutes (mine took 50 minutes) until you put in a toothpick and it comes out clean.

Cool in the pan for a couple minutes and then remove and cool for another 15 minutes. This makes it easier to slice.

Prepare the glaze by whisking together the lemon juice, orange juice, and sugar. I tried to make the glaze but it was much too sweet for my taste so I didn’t use it. Plus the bread is really good on its own :)