You are going to love this recipe I am sharing with you today. It is Irish Tea Brack, and as one would suppose hails from Ireland. (Have I ever told you our landlord is Irish?)
It is a very traditional Irish recipe which is kind of a cross between a cake and a bread. The word Brack comes from an old Irish word "breac" which means speckled, and this lovely bread/cake is certainly well speckled with fruit!
It used three vine fruits . . . raisins, sultanas (or golden raisins) and currants. These are soaked overnight in some cold tea.
I try to use a really strong tea to do breads like this so I tend to leave the tea bag in the water until it goes cold.
This recipe comes from the book "Homemade" by Irish cook Clodagh McKenna. It is the nicest brack recipe I have ever baked, and I have baked a few.
The book is largely out of print now, but you can still find it in some second hand shops as well as buy it from sellers online. Its a great book that I highly recommend!
You can also add the finely grated zest of a lemon to the mix.
Its not necessarily traditional, but it does add a nice flavour if you have it. I rather like it myself.
Its actually a very simple recipe. You begin by soaking the fruit overnight in the tea.
The next morning, you sift together flour, mixed spice, baking powder and a pinch of salt. Easy peasy.
Mixed spice is a very British thing . . . a mix of the warm baking spices . . . traditionally it is about half cinnamon . . . then ground coriander, ginger, nutmeg and cloves. Some brands will also have ground pimento in it.
I have a recipe that you can make your own on separate page entitled "Make Your Own" here on the blog. You can access that here.
Once you get all the dry ingredients sifted together, you can stir in some sugar. Once you have done that you can add the soaked fruits, along with any tea left in the soaking bowl.
A beaten egg then gets stirred into the batter.
Mix all together until there are no dry areas in the dough and everything is well mixed.
Spoon the batter into a buttered and lined tin and bake . . .
One hour later you will be rewarded with a delicious fruity loaf that your family will love!
It smells absolutely gorgeous when it is baking.
My husband came downstairs yesterday morning sniffing the air thinking all of his Christmas's had come at once. Yes, it smells that good!
We like it sliced thinly and spread with softened butter. This goes down a real treat with a hot cuppa!
Irish Tea Brack
Yield: 1 loaf
You are going to love this traditional Irish tea loaf! Moist, delicious and fat free! You don't need to feel guilty spreading slices of it with butter because there is none in the bread!
ingredients:
- 350g mixed dried vine fruits (raisins, sultanas and currants) (2 1/2 cups)
- 300ml cold tea, strong (1 1/4 cups)
- 120g caster sugar (1/2 cup, plus 2 TBS)
- 1 large free range egg, beaten lightly
- 250g plain flour (1 3/4 cup)
- 2 tsp baking powder
- pinch salt
- 2 tsp mixed spice (see my recipe in the right hand side bar, or if on a mobile device down at the bottom of the page)
instructions:
How to cook Irish Tea Brack
- Place all the dried fruit into a bowl. Cover with the cold tea, cover and leave overnight to infuse.
- The next morning preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter a 1 kg loaf tin (2 pound) and line the bottom with paper. (I make an overhang so I can lift it out easily.)
- Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and mixed spice. Add the fruit along with any tea still in the bowl, and the beaten egg. Mix well. Spoon into the prepared tin, levelling it off.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour until risen, golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.
- Let cool in the tin for 10 minutes before lifting out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Once cold store in an airtight container. This will keep up to two weeks. (Not that you will have it that long!) Serve cut into slices, spread with softened butter, if desired.
Properly stored, this lovely loaf will keep up to two weeks. I seriously doubt it will be around that long however. Yes, it is THAT good!
Make Your Own Mixed Spice: You can easily make your own mixed spice: Combine 1 TBS ground cinnamon, 1 tsp each of ground coriander and nutmeg, 1/2 tsp of ground ginger, 1/4 tsp each of ground cloves and all spice. Mix well and store in an airtight container out of the light for up to 6 months.
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This is a fabulous recipe that really goes together quickly and that your family will love. You can serve this either for breakfast spooned over some yogurt or cereal, or even pancakes. Or on it's own with a dollop of yogurt on top or a muffin on the side.
It makes an excellent side dish if you are having people over for brunch. Simple, colourful and very tasty!
Its basically just a mix of various fruits marinated in their own juices with some lemon juice, water and a touch of sugar.
If you really wanted to get fancy you could use a lemon lime soda, which would make it a bit fizzy. Children love that.
It takes two ripe bananas. I don't like to use them when they are over-ripe. I tend to err on the side of a bit more green than ripe. Peel and cut into slices.
You will need one ripe peach or nectarine. Again, don't have it too ripe. You may want to peel the peach. (Just dip in some boiling water for about 30 seconds and then peel. Easy peasy.)
Cut that into bite sized pieces. I used a nectarine today . . .
You will also need one large orange, or naval orange. Cut both the ends off and then peel away all of the skin and outer pith.
Cut this into chunks also. (Put all the fruit into a bowl as you are cutting it.)
There is one sweet eating apple in this. I used a Pink Lady.
Cut cut in half, core and then cut into chunks. I leave the skin on for fibre and flavour. Again pop it into the bowl with everything else.
One kiwi fruit. I saw yellow ones at the shops the other day, but I bought the normal ones. Peel and cut into half moons. Add these to the bowl also.
Finally you will need 10 or so grapes. I used green, but black would be really pretty. Cut these in half and add to the bowl.
Give it all a good mix together along with the juice of one lemon and some sugar (Or honey). Just enough to make it palatable.
It all depends on how sweet or ripe your fruit is. The less ripe the fruit the more sugar you will need, but you don't want your fruit to be overly ripe either because it doesn't hold up well.
This also makes a great and healthy snack. You do need to eat it on the day, which usually isn't a problem
You could use other fruits if you wanted to. This is just the fruits that I usually use. You can vary it according to what fruit you have in the house or that you enjoy!
Macedonian Fruit Salad
Yield: 4
This fabulous fruit salad makes a great addition to breakfast or a brunch, or even as a light dessert. Its a really tasty way to get in some of your five a day.
ingredients:
- 2 bananas
- 1 ripe peach or nectarine
- 1 sweet eating apple
- 1 kiwi fruit, peeled
- 1 large orange, peeled and chopped
- 10 grapes, halved
- 120ml water (1/2 cup)
- the juice of one lemon
- 1 tsp sugar or as needed
instructions:
How to cook Macedonian Fruit Salad
- Prepare all of your fruit. Peel the banana, and orange. Cut all of the fruit into bite sized pieces. Cut the grapes in half. Put into a bowl. Pour in the water and add sugar as needed. Stir everything together. Cover and chill for an hour prior to serving.
I am sharing a really great traditional recipe with you tomorrow! Irish Tea Brack! (Its a loaf bread/cake.) It uses a mix of dried vine fruits (raisins, sultanas and currants) and some cold tea. You are going to love it!
If you wanted to get the fruit ready today, you will need 350g mixed dried fruit (2 1/2 cups) and 300ml cold tea.(1 1/4 cups). Just mix the fruit together with the tea tonight before you go to bed and you will be ready to bake it in the morning. I'll have the recipe posted by then!
One of my favourite of all the British cakes has to be the Madeira Cake. It is a very easy cake to make. It can be quite unremarkable to look at, but when done properly, it is quite simply a lovely cake to eat and to enjoy!
I have often thought it is very reminiscent of North America Pound Cake. It has a dense moist crumb and a beautiful texture.
My mother would often buy a slab of pound cake when she shopped for our groceries. For us it was a real treat! We did not get sweet things or dessert very often.
My mother had been overweight as a child, a chubby young girl. It was really important to her that her children not suffer the same fate. As a result sweet and fattening things were a rarity in our home, which only made them more desirable.
She would cut the pound cake into thin slices and serve it with tinned peaches or ice cream for dessert, and if we were really lucky all three!
Nothing ever tasted better to our way of thinking. Or maybe we were just starved for dessert. I think not however as Pound Cake is a favourite with many people and they can't all be wrong!
You would think with a name like Madeira Cake, this cake would have a somewhat exotic history. Alas, it does not.
Whilst its ingredients are about as simple as you can get . . . butter, sugar, lemon zest, eggs, flour and milk . . . its history is a bit less straightforward . . .
There are a few misconceptions about this cake . . . one being that it hails from the Portuguese Island of Madeira, and another that it contains Madeira wine . . . neither of which is true. This cake is quintessentially, purely British in origin!
I kid you not! Its quite true.
One of its earliest published recipes was by Eliza Acton in her book, Modern cookery for Private families in 1845. Her recipe went as follows:
The name Madeira comes from the early British penchant for enjoying slivers of this delectable cake along with glasses of Madeira wine, which complemented it perfectly, or so I am told. (I don't drink wine so I can't tell you for sure!)
I can tell you, however, that is has a firm light texture which I find quite enjoyable. Its not light in the least, quite like a pound cake.
Its dense crumbly texture makes it the ideal cake for enjoying with a hot cuppa! You can also find it with cherries in it and I have seen it in the shops, split, filled with a thin layer of butter cream icing and then decorated with a glace icing on top.
You can buy it here in narrow slabs, iced or not, with or without cherries, sometimes with nuts, often split and iced with a butter icing in the middle and a glaze icing on top.
I prefer it this way . . . plain and simple. At its very basic as befits a fabulous cake which has enough redeeming qualities as to render it totally enjoyable all on its own, with only a hot cuppa to go along with it.
Traditionally thin slivers of candied lemon peel are laid across the top while it is baking . . .
I am not sure why this is done . . . but it does add a nice bit of decoration to an otherwise very plain cake . . . or maybe it is to help to disguise the inevitable crack which always shows up along the top of the cake.
I am rather fond of the flavour of peel myself. Today I candied my own peel to lay across the top of this cake.
The cake itself is flavoured plainly with some lemon zest, although I have also seen people add vanilla to it . . .
I prefer it with just lemon, but then . . . I am a simple girl with simple tastes. It does not take a lot to please me. Simple things done well will do the trick every time.
With vanilla or without . . . candied lemon on top or not . . . with wine or with tea . . . I think you will agree with me in thinking that this is a most agreeable and delicious cake to enjoy no matter how you choose to enjoy it!
Boy
I tell you this simple cake blows that horrible almond/omelet cake that
I baked the other day right out of the water! I would much rather have
a real cake. There is no real comparison at all! You can't beat the real thing.
Madeira Cake
Yield: Serves 8
A lovely teatime cake. Dense and delicious and lightly flavoured with lemon.
ingredients:
- 175g softened butter (3/4 cup)
- 175g caster sugar (1 cup minus 2 TBS)
- the finely grated zest of one lemon
- 3 large free range eggs, beaten
- 115g plain flour (1 cup, less 2 1/2 TBS)
- 115g self raising flour (1 cup, less 2 1/2 TBS)
- 1 - 2 TBS whole milk
- thin slivers of candied lemon peel to decorate the top
instructions:
How to cook Madeira Cake
- Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter and line a medium sized loaf tin with baking paper.
- Sift the flours together. Set aside.
- Rub the lemon peel into the sugar until very fragrant. Cream together with the softened butter until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs a bit at a time. If the mixture starts to curdle at all, add a spoonful of the flour as needed. Fold the remaining flour into the creamed mixture. Stir in milk as needed to give you a batter with a soft dropping consistency.
- Spoon the batter into the prepared pan, levelling the surface. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 20 minutes. Carefully remove from the oven and lay the lemon peel on top, then return to the oven and bake for a further 40 minutes or until golden and a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.
- Let cool in the tin for 10 minutes before lifting out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Cut into slices to serve. You can dust with icing sugar if you wish. Store any leftovers in an airtight container.
Today I decided to make us a delicious crustless vegetable quiche for our dinner. Well, actually I made it for me as my husband was having the leftovers from yesterday.
I fancied something quick, easy, delicious and a tiny bit healthier!
There is actually no shortage of crustless quiche recipes that you can find on Pinterest. This is kind of like my go to when I am looking for inspiration.
Crustless quiche makes the perfect quick and easy entrée. Its great for lunch or for supper. On this particular day I wasn't really inspired by anything I found so I went with my own intuition.
Its also a great way to use up any vegetables or other bits that are languishing in the refrigerator. Today I used broccoli and cauliflower, which is what I had in my refrigerator.
I just broke off a few florets of each and cooked them in some lightly salted boiling water until crispy tender. You could also use frozen, but you should also cook them first.
Make sure you drain and dry them really well on some paper kitchen toweling so that the are not really wet after cooking.
I added some onion for flavour also, which I threw in and cooked with the vegetables. You could also use chopped spring onions, in which case you don't need to cook them.
I didn't happen to have any today and this is our week of not being able to buy groceries as it was rent week. So very much a make do with what you have week.
Once you have your veggies cooked, make sure you drain them really well. If they are too wet they will give you a soggy result.
I drain them well in a wire colander, chop and then drain again. You can also pat them dry with a kitchen towel. I know I already said that but I cannot stress it enough!
Pop them into a small casserole dish that you have buttered, spreading them out to cover the bottom.
Mine was a single serve gratin dish. About six inches in length, and about 1 1/2 inches tall.
I still had some cheese left from the Cheester Egg, just a small piece and so I grated that and scattered it over top of the veggies. It was a lovely strong cheddar.
You can use any cheese you like actually . . . Stilton, Emmethaler (Swiss), Parmesan, or even a combination of cheeses. Its all up to you and what you have and what you are craving!
I had some medium eggs (I normally buy large) that my husband had picked up at Costco the other week, which he then dropped as soon as he came in the door.
Thankfully most of them didn't break. I used the cracked ones in baking and today I used three of the non-cracked ones in this.
Beaten together with some dairy sour cream and seasonings, this was poured over top of the vegetables and cheese in the dish.
After that it was a quick half hour in the oven and dinner was served. I am thinking a couple slices of toast would go down really nice, as would a salad . . . but if you were going to do toast, you might just as well do a crust. This is only my opinion!
Some other options that you might want to cook for supper that use eggs are:
ANYTHING HASH WITH POACHED EGGS - A great vegetarian meal composed of a lovely hash of cooked vegetables. I used carrot, potato, broccoli stems, turnips and onion. Topped with a lightly poached egg, it makes a really delicious and filling supper option.
SCRAMBLED EGGS BENEDICT - This is one of my favorite meals, whether I have it for supper, or brunch or breakfast. Not as faffy to make as regular eggs benedict. You have all of the components with the ease of softly scrambled eggs rather than poached. I used a good recipe for a blender hollandaise which is really simple to make. I used back bacon rather than ham.
Yield: 2
Crustless Veggie Quiche
A healthier version of a favourite dish, perfectly sized for just two people. Quick, easy and delicious.
ingredients:
- softened butter to grease the pan
- 4 broccoli florets
- 4 cauliflower florets
- 1/2 small onion, peeled and chopped
- 2 heaped TBS sour cream
- 3 medium eggs
- salt and black pepper to taste
- 1/8 tsp garlic powder
- 3 TBS grated strong cheddar cheese
instructions:
How to cook Crustless Veggie Quiche
- Preheat the oven to 200*C/400*F/ gas mark 7. Butter a small baking dish. (I used a small oval casserole that holds about 1 1/2 cups.)
- Bring a saucepan of lightly salted water to the boil. Add the broccoli, cauliflower and onion. Cook until the vegetables are crispy tender. Drain well and then chop the broccoli and cauliflower into smaller bits.
- Place the chopped veggies and onions into the buttered baking dish. Sprinkle the cheese over all.
- Beat the eggs, sour cream, and seasonings together. Pour over the veggies in the baking dish.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cut in half to serve.
I didn't have any salad fixings and so I ended up cooking some tater tots to go with it. I know . . . salad would have been much healthier and probably a lot tastier! In any case this was really delicious. I am thinking chopped spinach and feta cheese would also be a great combination!
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