Bara brith

Welsh 'speckled bread' enriched with fruit and spices

Ingredients
450g mixed dried fruit (if including dried figs cut them very small)
300ml tea
2 Tbsp marmalade
1 egg, beaten
6 Tbsp soft brown sugar
1 Tsp mixed spice
450g SR flour
Honey to glaze

Method
Soak fruit overnight in the tea – or if you don’t have time 1-2 hrs is fine. 
Preheat over 175-180C.
Mix in the marmalade, egg, sugar, spice and flour.
Spoon into a greased 900g loaf tin and bake 1 hr or until the centre is cooked through.
If the top is browning too much cover with a sheet of foil.
Once cooked leave the Bara Brith to stand for 5 mins before turning out onto a cooling tray. Then brush the top with honey.
Serve sliced with salted butter or add some tasty cheddar – it is also yummy toasted with butter and/or cheese. 

Chook’s note: The original recipe was made with yeast but it works perfectly well with SR flour. If using SR flour try adding ½ tsp of bicarb soda for extra umph! The top of the loaf will split when baking but don’t worry this allows the centre to cook more easily (the Irish used to cut a cross in the top of their soda bread to let the Devil out but in reality if helps with cooking the centre).  
You could throw in a few caraway seeds to the mix. Be creative. Maybe try making muffin-sized small ‘loaves’. It freezes very well. 

This is not unlike my date and walnut loaf (posted June 2017) and boiled fruit cake (Sept 2017) only a little denser.