From my old, brown-paged, batter-stained Joy of Cooking, vol. 2: Appetizers, Desserts, and Baked Goods. It needed a little adjustment, but it was quite good - even though I don’t usually like orange flavors in desserts. I’m sure you can make it with lemon zest instead. It’s very good spread with ricotta cheese and drizzled with honey.

By the way, zest can be frozen. If you’ve got a bag of lemons to make lemonade, or if you’re peeling an orange to eat - zest it, then freeze it in a little ziploc bag, and juice a little bit of the fruit into the bag. You can keep it on hand and be ready to bake or make curd or add it to seafood.

Recipe here

Orange tea bread
Adapted from Joy of Cooking, Vol 2, 1964

Preheat oven to 350

- Sift, then measure out 3 cups of flour (I think it’s an almost equal ratio of flour to sifted flour - but start with sifting about 2.5 cups, then sift more to get up to 3 cups)
- 3 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tbs. grated orange rind
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup orange juice
- 1 1/4 cups milk
- 2 tbs melted shortening
- 1 1/4 cup applesauce
- 1/2 cup chopped nuts

Right, so, as I’m typing this recipe, I realize that I put in 1 3/4 cup milk instead of 1 1/2. That would explain why mine took longer to bake. But, it was soft and yummy, so….it’s okay?

- Sift the 3 cups of flour again with 3 tsp. baking powder. Add the sugar and orange rind.
- Beat together the egg, juice, milk, applesauce, and melted butter/shortening.
- Add and mix wet ingredients to the dry ingredients in parts. Fold in the nuts.
- Bake for 50 to 60 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the center is clean.

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