Glazed Blood Orange Bread

I love spring.  And while Nude nail polish and cute wedge heels and these crazy-good Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Bites are right up there on my top 10 list of Things I Most Love About Spring, nothing comes close to the fruit and vegetables of the season.  The market is a riot of colour again, after the pretty much green and brown colour scheme of winter. The garden is bright with splashes of colour and the fruit trees are in blossom. One fruit that we have in abundance at the moment is the beautiful blood orange. It's actually a winter fruit, but it's at it's best in early spring when it develops that dusky blush on the skin and that eye-popping crimson flesh... And the juice, oh the juice. That jewel-coloured, slightly tart liquid that puts a ray of sunshine into everything it touches. Do you see how smitten I am?

Tell me you'll try and source some blood oranges. And then promise me you will join me in my blood orange obsession. We can start a club. We'll design posters, get T-shirts printed, have meetings, the whole shebang. You bring the wine.

NOTE: Seriously though, if you can't get your mitts on blood oranges, you can use navel oranges. You won't get that pretty pink coloured glaze, but it will still be a bread worthy of obsessing over.



Glazed Blood Orange Bread
from The America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book

For the Bread:
1 3/4 cups plain flour
1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoons salt
115g unsalted butter, softened
1 1/3 cups caster sugar
2 tablespoons grated blood orange zest
3 large eggs
1/4 cup milk
3 teaspoons fresh blood orange juice

For the Glaze:
3/4 cup icing sugar
4 1/2 teaspoon fresh blood orange juice
Pinch salt

Make the Bread:
Preheat oven to 160 degrees C. Grease a 22x12cm  loaf pan with butter or cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. In the bowl of an electric mixer set on medium speed, beat together butter, sugar and blood orange zest until light and fluffy, 4 to 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating to combine after each addition.

Turn the mixer to low and gradually add the flour mixture, milk and blood orange juice. Beat until just combined. Take care not to over beat or the bread will be tough. Pour the batter into prepared pan and level with a spatula.

Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with only a few crumbs attached, 50 to 60 minutes. Let the bread sit in the pan for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the outside and turn the pan upside down to release the bread. Let cool on a wire rack for 1 hour, then glaze.

Glaze:
In a medium bowl, whisk together the icing sugar, blood organe juice and salt until combined. Drizzle over cooled bread.