Lemon Chocolate Chip Loaf Cake

Hey! I have an idea. Let’s all just get on a time machine and pretend I posted this in May instead of August! Huh? Doesn’t that sound fun? Okay, let’s do this.

[insert TARDIS noises here]

Well, it is currently the month of May in the year 2013, and today I am going to share this lovely recipe for Lemon Chocolate Chip Loaf Cake with you all! Wow, can you imagine if I had baked these and then waited five months to make a post about it? Haha! No, only a very silly and lazy person would do such a thing. And I’m certainly neither of those things!

Anyway, this recipe is from that Chocolate Chip cookbook I’ve used so much in the past. I can’t help it that there are a bunch of really great things in there, alright? I mean, adding chocolate chips to ANYTHING gets me excited, but you know. I saw this one and thought that lemon and chocolate chips seemed like a strange combination, but the blurb assured me it was a “sleeper combination”. And what an accurate statement that was. Lemon and chocolate actually go insanely good together, so if you haven’t tried such a concoction before, you definitely should. You won’t be sorry. Unless you dislike lemons and/or chocolate, I guess, in which case, why are you even here? Please leave.

I haven’t baked in a while, and I have to say, baking alone on a nice spring afternoon was incredibly relaxing. I wasn’t making anything particularly complicated, so I wasn’t stressing myself out, and breaking eggs and mixing a bunch of powders and liquids in a bowl is an oddly calming activity. I will definitely be baking a lot again and not letting my blog sit and gather dust for nearly half a year!

Oh, um, my… memory seems to be getting a little foggy… it’s almost like I baked this a long time ago, and not recently! Wow! How strange!

In any case, when I brought this to work it was a major hit, despite the fact that I mayyyy have overbaked it a little bit, as evidenced by the very, very brown outsides that you can see in the photo below. The recipe also said to use a fork to poke holes in the top to let the lemon syrup in, but I found that the fork didn’t penetrate deeply enough, so I used a knife instead. It might actually be easier to use a toothpick or something, but I didn’t have any handy.

Enough of this, though; onto the recipe!

Lemon Chocolate Chip Loaf Cake (from The Essential Chocolate Chip Cookbook)

Cake

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 stick unsalted butter at room temp

1 cup sugar

2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon almond extract (optional; I didn’t use this)

1/2 cup whole milk

1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

Lemon Syrup

1/2 cup sugar

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and butter or spray a 9x5x3 inch loaf pan. Line with parchment paper and butter the paper as well.

Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl, then set aside. In large bowl with an electric mixer, beat the butter, sugar, and lemon zest until smoothly blended. Stop the mixer and scrape the sides of the bowl as needed. Add the eggs and the extract(s) and mix until blended. If it looks a little curdled that’s fine. On low speed, add half of the flour mixture until it is just incorporated, then mix in the milk. Add the rest of the flour mixture until incorporated, then add the chocolate chips.

Scrape the batter into your loaf pan, and bake until the top is browned and toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (about fifty minutes).

For the lemon syrup — in a small saucepan, about ten minutes before the cake is done, heat the sugar and lemon juice over medium heat, stirring constantly until the sugar dissolves. DON’T BOIL. When done, set aside.

As soon as the cake comes out of the oven, use a fork/toothpick/knife/whatever long sharp object you happen to have to poke holes all over the top. Pour the warm syrup evenly over the cake. Use all of it. Let the cake cool completely, which should take about an hour. Use a small knife to loosen the cake from the sides of the pan. Place a large plate on top of the pan, and carefully flip the cake onto the plate. Cut into slices and serve!