Bara brith
Good Food reader, Win Morgan shares her recipe for this traditional Welsh tea bread loaf with mixed spice - serve sliced and spread with butter
Dark chocolate, orange & ginger bara brith
- Preparation and cooking time
- Prep:
- Cook:
- plus overnight soaking and 3 hrs drying (optional)
- Easy
- Serves 8-10
Skip to ingredients
Ingredients
- 3 strong black teabags
- 300g dried mixed fruit
- butter, for the tin
- 180g dark brown soft sugar
- 4-5 balls of stem ginger, roughly chopped
- 100g dark chocolate, chopped
- 2 tsp marmalade
- 2 drops of orange essence, or use 1 orange, zested
- 1 medium egg, beaten
- 230g self-raising flour
- ½ tsp mixed spice
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- pinch of ground ginger
For the decoration
- 50g dark chocolate
- 2 oranges (optional)
Method
- STEP 1
Drop the teabags into a heatproof jug, pour over 350ml boiling water from the kettle and leave to brew for 5 mins. Tip the dried fruit into a large heatproof bowl and pour over the hot tea. Cover and soak overnight.
- STEP 2
Heat the oven to 170C/150C fan/gas 3. Butter a 2lb loaf tin and line with baking parchment. Scatter the sugar over the soaked fruit and stir to dissolve. Add the ginger, chocolate, marmalade, orange essence, egg, flour, a pinch of salt and all the spices, then mix to a thick batter.
- STEP 3
Scrape into the tin and bake for 1 hr 15 mins. Leave in the tin for 10 mins, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool.
- STEP 4
To decorate, melt the chocolate in short bursts in the microwave, or in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water, ensuring the bowl doesn’t touch the water. If you’re making the dried peel, peel the oranges and cut the peel into strips. Press dry with a kitchen towel, then scatter over a baking tray and bake at 90C or your oven’s lowest setting for 3 hrs, checking every 45 mins. Leave to cool. Drizzle the chocolate over the loaf and scatter with the peel.
