Bara Brith Welsh Tea Bread Recipes

Steps:

• Pour hot tea over currants and raisins in a bowl; soak 8 hours to overnight.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
• Grease a sheet of parchment paper and use it to line a 2-pound loaf pan.
• Stir demerara sugar into tea and fruit mixture until dissolved completely.
• Mix flour and egg into the tea and fruit mixture until completely integrated into a batter.
• Spread batter evenly into the prepared bread pan.
• Bake in preheated oven until golden-brown, about 40 minutes. Cool in the bread pan 5 minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely.

Steps:

• This is Wales' traditional rich fruit bread.
• South Wales makes it with baking powder; Northerners prefer yeast as the raising agent. Either way it's delicious.
• Soak the dried fruit and sugar overnight in the tea.
• You can use either fresh tea, or the cold dregs from the teapot (this gives a good strong colour). Next day, sieve the flour and fold it it into the fruit. Mix in the lightly beaten egg.
• Line a small loaf-tin with buttered paper then tip in the mixture, smoothing it well into the corners.
• Bake in a gentle oven at 300 F (150 C) for 1-1/2 hours.
• Cool and store for at least 2 days in a tin so that it matures moist and rich.
• Traditionalists say you should never butter the Bara Brith, but it's lovely that way!

Steps:

• Tip the fruit into a bowl with the sugar and orange zest. Pour over the tea, stir everything together and leave to soak overnight.
• Heat oven to 160C/140C fan/gas 3. Grease and line the base and short sides of a 900g/loaf tin with 1 strip of baking parchment. Tip the flour and spice into a bowl, and beat in the fruit and soaking liquid. Add the egg, followed by the butter. Beat until you have a well-combined, stiff batter, then tip into the prepared loaf tin. Bake for 1¼ hrs, covering with foil or parchment if the top starts to get too dark. Check with a skewer - if it doesn't come out clean, give it another 5-10 mins in the oven.
• Leave to cool in the tin for 10 mins, then remove and leave to cool completely. Serve sliced and buttered, if you like.

Steps:

• First prepare 150ml of strong tea. Place the mixed peel, currents and sultanas in a bowl and pour over the hot tea. Cover and leave to stand over night.
• The following day preheat the oven to 170C/fan 150C/gas 5.
• Sift the flour into a bowl, add the spice and nutmeg and a pinch of salt. Cut the butter into small cubes, add to the flour and rub this in with the tips of your fingers until the flour and butter are thoroughly mixed. Remove the fruit from the tea and add them to the butter and flour mixture. Tip in the sugar and mix well. Beat the eggs and milk together and add this to the mixture. Finally, add the marmalade and golden syrup and mix thoroughly.
• Grease a 500g loaf tin with butter, line with baking parchment and pour in the cake mixture. Bake for 40 minutes. At the end of this time take the cake out, line the top with baking parchment (to prevent the top burning) and return to the oven for a further 35 minutes (at this point check the cake occasionally; it is ready when set in the middle and golden brown in colour).

Steps:

• Oven: 450F, Gas Mark 8 for 15 minutes: 375F, Gas Mark 5 for 45 minutes.
• Soak the fruit and candied peel in the water with the spice.
• Leave to steep in a warm place and use the warm spicy, strained water to mix the dough.
• Sift the flour and salt and rub in the lard; cream the yeast with the sugar and a little of the spiced water; mix this into the flour, together with the eggs and use enough of the water to give a firm, yet elastic dough.
• Knead well, leave to rise and knock back; blend in the drained fruit and knead again.
• Shape the dough into loaves and set into greased 1 lb tins in a warm place to prove; bake, reducing the temperature after the first 15 minutes.
• Originally, in some recipies, the fruit content would have been fresh currants or blackberries.
• Bara Brith is often served as part of the traditional Welsh tea.
• It can also be purchased at many of the small bakeries found throughout Wales.
• British Cookery (BTA/BFPC)