I love you all.  I really do.
I am in Italy.  I am getting so little sleep that it really doesn't make sense to refer to it as sleep.  Let's just say that I doze momentarily once every 18 hrs or so.
Florence is wonderful.  It would be even more wonderful if I weren't with 180 boys but it's still pretty wonderful... and the boys are wonderful too.  The wifi however is not wonderful and I've been catching my ass to try and get pictures happening (the dozing once in a while thing might have something to do with that problem too).  So I was hoping to have post full of gorgeous pictures of Florence and Pisa and Siena but sadly, I do not.


I do have pictures of this lemon loaf that I made before I left because it was really important for me to do this for some reason that I can't remember right now.  If I remember I will let you know.  I did take a few pieces with me for my trip which helped with the overnight flight quite a bit.  BTW, no one over 26 should ever consider an overnight flight - they just shouldn't do it.  The cherries were thrown in because this is the time of year when I get antsy about my freezer and start clearing out that sucker.  Hence, roasted cherries.


So with some dozing in my very near future I'll leave you with the pictures of lemon loaf and you can imagine what my Italy pictures will be as soon as I get them out there.


Lemon and Roasted Cherry Loaf adapted from Portuguese Girl Cooks
makes 1 loaf of bread

1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour (Plus 1 tbsp for the cherries)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
zest from two small lemons (about 1 1/2 - 2 tbsp)
juice from 1 lemon (about 1 1/2 - 2 tbsp)
1/2 cup milk
1 cup roasted cherries (cherries halved, placed on a baking sheet, drizzled with 1 - 2 tbsp vanilla or rum, roasted at 325°F for 25 minutes.  Remove from oven and cool)

Preheat oven to 350°F
Grease and flour a 9x5 inch loaf pan and set aside.
Combine the flour, baking powder and salt together.  Set aside.
In a large bowl beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add in the eggs and continue to beat until fluffy and frothy (almost).  Add in the lemon juice and mix well.
Alternately add some of the flour mixture and the milk mixture.  Stirring to mix well with each addition.   Begin and end with the flour.
Coat the cooled cherries with 1 tbsp of flour.  Once coated fold in just once or twice into the batter.
Gently pour into the prepared pan and bake for about 45 - 50 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Glaze:
1 1/2  - 2 cups Icing sugar
lemon juice

Sift the icing sugar into a bowl and add just enough fresh lemon juice to get the mixture to a pouring consistency - add the lemon juice slowly because once you have too much you can't go back.
Pour over completely cooled loaf.