Honeyed Apple Tea Bread

I seem to be in fruit bread kinda mood lately. I'm craving it for breakfast. Sometimes I find myself loathing the thought of having to ingest another bite of my usual Honey-Nut Cheerios, or oatmeal with fruit, or Kashi, or yogurt & granola kinda breakfast. I'm craving fruit filled, homey bread smothered in Jules' homemade jam. So I whipped up this Honeyed Apple Tea Bread from the Shelburn Farm Cookbook and took it to work with me. The honey in this recipe makes this bread just sweet enough and the apples give it a tart tang.

Good thing I had a piece at home cause by 8:30am, that baby was gone! Lots of seagulls at work, lol. I didn't share my jam with them though. No one's touching my jam.

Honeyed Apple Tea Bread
Printable Recipe
2 cups of all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon table salt
4 large eggs
¼ cup honey
¼ cup granulated sugar
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 tablespoon apple brandy, such as Calvados (optional)
2 medium apples, peels, cored and cut into ¼ inch dice (about 2 cups) I used Golden Delicious.
1 tablespoons finely grated lemon zest

Preheat the oven to 350. Generously butter a 9x5 inch loaf pan. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.

In the bowl of a stand mixer with a whisk attachment, or using a hand held mixer, beat the eggs on high speed with the honey and white sugar until light (about 8 – 10 minutes). Using a spatula, gently fold the flour mixture into the egg mixture alternating with the melted butter.

Stir in the apple brandy, if suing, and the diced apples and lemon zest. Mix just to combine, making sure there are no flour pockets, but don’t over mix.

Spread the batter into the pan. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until top is golden brown and a test comes out clean. If the top gets too dark, tent it with foil. Cool the tea bread in it’s pan on a rack for about 5 minutes, then remove from the pan and place it on a serving platter to glaze (see glaze recipe below) while it’s still warm.

For the glaze
¼ cup confectioner’s sugar
3 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice (from the same lemon used for zest)

Mix and drizzle over warm tea bread.