17 September 2010
Recipe For Yorkshire Fruit Tea Bread
We have always loved teabreads here at home like those made by Elizabeth Bothams of Whitby, but I reckoned that some of those homely, comforting cakes could not be too difficult to make. So this weekend I set out to make a traditional Fruit Teabread, plus I wanted to have an experiment with cooking with tea. Quite a lot of the English traditional cakes call for fruit to be laced with alcohol and soaked for a time, but couldn't this be replaced with soaking in tea?
What I ended out with is a cross between a teabread and a Yorkshire brack, a lighter brack than maybe traditional but richer than a teabread.
Firstly, the practical error, I used a loaf tin that was too small for the mixture, and will need to add an extra 30% to the quantities for the loaf tin, or use a smaller loaf tin; I think I have two little loaf tins hidden somewhere in the cellar. Secondly, you could perhaps increase the amount of pepper used, but not by much as little of that flavour seemed to come through. Thirdly, the tea used in this case was a Christmas Chai that we hand blend at our Ripon factory and was hanging over in our cupboard from last year, as I felt that its extra spiciness would add a mysterious hint of the exotic to the background flavour, but I am not sure that it was tastable (if that's a genuine word). Finally, I boiled the fruit in the tea, whereas most recipes suggest that you soak the fruit overnight, which is fine, however I never real know what I want to bake until the day has arrived, so I needed to speed up the process.
Otherwise the taste and texture were great, and it lasted for about 30 minutes without a complaint from anyone who tried it. In fact, most came back for more, so it cannot have been half bad.
How to make Fruit Tea Bread
115g / 4oz / 2/3 cup sultanas
75g / 3oz / ½ cup raisins
40g / 1½ oz / 3tbsp currants
200ml / 7 fl oz / 7/8 cup strong black tea (2tbsp in 6 cup pot; try a chai for subtle differences)
1 pinch of ground black pepper, or lemon pepper
115g / 4oz / ½ cup soft brown sugar
180g / 7oz / 1½ cups plain flour (I used Gilchesters strong white flour)
1½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp Fairtrade cinnamon powder
½ tsp Fairtrade nutmeg powder
1 large egg, at room temperature and lightly beaten
30g / 1oz unsalted butter, melted and cooled to touch warm
Preheat the oven to 180C/ 350F. Line a loaf tin with baking paper.
Place the dried fruit into a small saucepan, then add the strong tea, heat and simmer for 10 - 15 minutes until the fruit has plumped up. Leave to cool in the pan. When cool strain away any excess liquid, add the pinch of ground pepper, stir the fruit around and try and coat most of the fruit. Stir in the sugar and leave to the side.
Sieve together the plain flour, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg powders. Make a well in the centre of the flour, then add in the egg and stir thoroughly with a spatula. Add the melted butter and stir until you have a soft dough. Add the sugar coated fruits and throughly beat together with the silicone spatula.
Tip the fruit cake mixture into the prepared loaf tin. Bake for 1 hour, remove from the oven then leave to stand in the tin for about 10 minutes, before turning out and leaving to cool on wire rack. You do not need to leave this to cool down completely as it is lovely eaten warm.
Serve on its own or spread with butter.
