Irish Tea Bread

Last night I fancied something sweet with a cup of tea later on in the evening.  I know that's unlike me, as I'm usually drinking wine then.   My thoughts turned to Irish Tea bread from  Delia's "How to cook, book one".  This morning while chatting to Rachel before school and waiting for my toast to pop up , I poured tea over dried fruit in a bowl (on purpose, not because I was half asleep) covered the bowl with a tea towel and left it for the day.  I'm not suggesting that everyone should make cakes at breakfast time, that's just unrealistic and very silly.  I'm just showing you that this is a cake that can be prepared in minutes . I had dried fruit left over from making a Christmas cake,  any combination of  fruit works with this. All I had was sultanas and a few raisins.  The next stage of the cake was equally as quick to do this evening  and within 5 - 10 minutes the cakes were baking the oven.  I use cake liners for cooking these cakes, which are available from most cook shops.  


The beauty of this apart from it being delicious, is that it makes two cakes, one to eat now and one to freeze. It keeps well and it's  really good toasted and buttered.

This is slightly shortened version of the original

Makes 2 small loaves


Ingredients
225g raisins
225g currants
225g sultanas
225g demerara sugar ( I used soft brown sugar)
10 fl oz of strong tea (very flavoured tea like earl grey or green tea is good)
1 large egg at room temperature beaten with 2 tbspn of milk
450g of self raising flour


2 loaf tins , bases lined with greaseproof paper


Method


Begin this the evening before by placing all of the fruits in a bowl.  Dissolve the sugar in the hot tea and pour this over the fruits.  Cover and leave overnight so the fruits become plump and juicy.
The next day, set oven to 170C.  Add the beaten egg mixture to the fruits and stir then add the flour and give a really good mix.  It may seem very dry, that's normal, if you think it's too dry add a little more milk.  Divide the mixture between two loaf tins and bake in the oven for around 1 hour until they feel springy in the middle and golden in colour.  Remove from the oven and turn them out onto a baking rack to cool.


To be clear, I did this in the morning, left the fruits all day and made the cake tonight.

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