Bara Brith

I made this for the European bread festival at Schuman last weekend, and it was very popular. Lots of people asked where they could buy it, and upon being told I’d made it, I promised them I would put it my blog. (It didn’t even last long enough for me to take a picture!)

Bara Brith is Welsh ‘speckled bread’. It’s not really bread at all, more like a fruit cake, but one that is very special to me, given my Welsh heritage. I don’t often post cake recipes on here, but I love baking! This recipes is low in fats, but it does contain quite a bit of sugar from both the muscavado and the dried fruit.

You need to start making this the night before, as ideally the fruit needs to soak in the tea over night.

Ingredients
350g self raising flour
150g muscovado sugar (or any brown sugar)
1 egg
300ml tea (you can mix it up here, but I normally use Welsh – or English – breakfast)
450g dried fruit (raisins, sultanas, cranberries and mixed peel work well)
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp mixed spice
2 tbsp orange juice
1 tbsp orange zest

Method
1. Tip the dried fruit into a large bowl (it will expand), and pour the tea over it. Cover and leave it to soak overnight.
2. Preheat your oven to 160’c and grease a loaf tin lightly with butter.
3. Grate the orange to get the zest, then cut in half and squeeze  to get some juice. Sieve it to ensure there’s no pips!
4. Mix together the sugar, egg, honey, orange juice and zest.
5. Add this mixture to the bowl containing the fruit and mix well.
6. Gradually sieve in the flour and mixed spice, stirring in as you go.
7. The consistency of the mixture should be thick and drop slowly off the back of a spoon. If it’s too thick, slowly add a little milk until you reach the desired consistency.
8. Pour the mixture into the greased tin, and place into the oven. It will need around 1.5-2 hours. The top should look golden, and be firm to the touch in the middle.
9. Allow to cool, before slicing into 12-14 slices and enjoying with a nice cup of tea.

This is the one picture I do have…

Nutritional info (based on the above recipe yielding 14 slices):
CALORIES: 230kcal
TOTAL FAT: 0.6g
SATURATED FAT: 0.1g
PROTEIN: 3.4g
TOTAL CARBOHYDRATE: 57g
SUGARS: 30g