Dr Mobeus
Bara Brith
Bara brith means speckled bread in Welsh, and it is the most useful cake in Britain: no butter to cream, no method to get wrong, just dried fruit that soaks overnight in strong tea and turns into a loaf that stays moist all week. The tea does the work that fat does in a fruit cake, which is why the whole thing costs about £1.60 for ten fat slices, roughly a quarter of what a bakery fruit loaf goes for. In Wales it is traditionally eaten buttered with an afternoon cuppa, and it keeps and travels so well that it was the tin miner’s and the quarryman’s lunch for generations. Slice it thick, and if it lasts three days without drying out you are eating it too slowly.
Bara Brith
Ingredients
Method
- The night before, put the dried fruit in a large bowl with the tea bags and cover with the boiling water. Leave to cool, then soak overnight so the fruit plumps up in the cold tea.
- The next day, heat the oven to 170C (150C fan) and line a 900 g loaf tin with baking paper.
- Lift out the tea bags, then stir the sugar, egg, golden syrup, mixed spice and salt into the soaked fruit along with all of its tea.
- Sift in the flour and fold it through until just combined into a heavy, sticky dough. Add a splash of milk only if it refuses to come together at all.
- Spoon into the tin, level the top and bake for about 1 hour, until a skewer pushed into the middle comes out clean. If the top darkens before the middle is done, cover it with foil.
- Cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack. It slices best on day two, and proper bara brith is eaten thickly buttered.
Tips and Variations
Do not drain the tea, as the soaked fruit carries all the moisture the loaf needs. A cold slice toasts beautifully under the grill with butter on top. It freezes well, whole or in slices. If the top sinks slightly in the middle, the loaf came out a touch early, so give it five minutes more next time.
