A delicious moist, fruited tea loaf recipe. The fruit is soaked overnight in Yorkshire tea. Often served on its own or with Wensleydale cheese. A perfect addition as part of an Afternoon Tea menu. It may be a Yorkshire thing, which is where I live, but cheese goes really well with fruit cake.
200gramsLight Brown Sugar or a mix of Light and Dark Brown Sugar
1teaspoonTea Leaves Finely Ground
270gramsSelf-Raising Flour
Instructions
Soaking the fruit
In a large bowl, add the freshly made tea to the mixed dried fruit. Cover and set aside for a minimum of 4 hours, ideally overnight, to allow all the goodness of the tea to soak into the fruits.
Make the Cake
In the morning, preheat the oven to 160 C fan-assisted and grease and line two 1-pound loaf tins with baking parchment. I use cake liners.
Add the eggs into the soaked mixed fruit, followed by the sugar. DO NOT remove any of the remaining liquid. Mix thoroughly.
Add the finely ground tea leaves to the flour and incorporate before adding this into the fruit mixture. Mix thoroughly.
Pour evenly into the prepared tins and bake for 50 – 55 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Remove from oven.
Leave in the tins to cool completely before turning out.
Notes
Alternately you can bake this in a 900g loaf tin for 60 - 75 mins or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.Alternative spices and tea flavours:
Replace the finely ground tea with complementary spices such as mixed spices (pumpkin pie mixture or similar) or cinnamon in equal measure.
Ring the changes by using different flavoured teas such as Tisanes.