I've been meaning to post this recipe for a while now,
so I'm finally getting around to it today.
It's a recipe for Bara Brith that I found in the River Cottage Cakes book,
which is basically a 'speckled bread', a welsh tea bread.
It's pretty simple to make, and the only real tricky part is leaving it to 'mature' for 3-4 days once its baked.. you'll seriously just want to tuck straight in!
It's a lovely fruit loaf to have with your afternoon cuppa
or even with some butter or jam for breakfast, yum!
Go on, give it a go...
(photos above taken by me for use on loveprintstudio blog)
Directions for one loaf
* Infuse a teabag in 175ml of boiling water for 5-10 minutes
* Place the dried fruit (I used a mix of currants, sultanas, cranberries, apricots and blueberries) orange zest and juice, sugar and tea in a mixing bowl, cover and leave overnight for the fruit to soak and plump up
* Preheat oven to gas mark 4
* Add the egg to the fruit mix and stir
* Sift the flour, salt and mixed spice together over the mixture and mix together to a soft dough
* Spoon into a prepared tin (1 litre loaf tin approx 20cm x 10cm, lightly greased and lined) and level the surface
*Bake for around an hour until the top is golden and a skewer inserted comes out clean
* Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes and then turn out onto a wire rack
* Once cool, wrap the tea bread in greaseproof paper and store in an airtight container and leave to mature for several days before tucking in
(the loaf will keep for 2-3 weeks)
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