Fruity Tea Bread

Fruity tea bread is a classic in our family. When you have just come home from a long day at work and want a snack before dinner, this is the first thing we always reach for. It can be eaten cold or toasted covered in dripping butter with a cup of tea in the evening. It also makes a great snack to take with you. I try to make this as often as possible because we eat it so quickly, it’s just that good.

I find soaking the fruit in the tea really helps enhance the flavour of the final loaf and leaving it a few days maturing makes it taste even better, if it lasts that long! This tea bread is also low in fructose in comparison with traditional tea bread, which is made with sultanas. You can flavour this bread with any type of dried fruit that you like and could even add in some chopped walnuts to give it a nice crunch.

 

Time: 2 hour

Ingredients

Soaked Fruits

200g cranberries

75g dried figs

75g dried apricots

2 Earl Grey teabags

150ml boiling water, plus extra to cover fruit

 

Batter

125g sugar

2 eggs

225g white flour

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground ginger

½ tsp ground nutmeg

½ tsp ground cardamom

 

Method

1. Chop the apricots and dried figs into small portions.
2. Pour the tea over the fruit. Add more water to cover the fruit completely, leave for 30 minutes with the tea bags in the liquid to soak. Best left overnight.
3. Preheat the oven to 170C.
4. Beat the eggs and sugar together until pale and slightly thickened.
5. Combine the flour, spices, soaked fruit and 150ml of the tea used to soak the fruit together and stir well.
6. Line a 900g loaf tin with baking paper and spoon in the mixture.
7.  Place in the oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour until golden brown.
8. Leave to cool in the tin & then serve sliced spread with butter.