Braken Bread

This is a traditional British fruit cake, which is moist, delicious, relatively low in fat, and keeps extremely well. Known in Wales as "Bara Brith" (lit. Speckled Bread) and along the Welsh Marches as "Braken Bread". This cake was a great favourite of mine as a child, Mum always used to make one to take away on holiday.

I use this cake whenever I am asked for a non-alcoholic fruit cake. The picture above shows one I have decorated with dried fruit and nuts as a Christmas Cake. It is firm and takes stacking and decorating in either fondant, or royal icing really well. However, this cake is traditionally served with a smear of butter, so it is also good with buttercream.

The basis of the recipe is good strong tea. Avoid heavily scented varieties of tea such as Earl Grey as they give the cake a strage taste. Green Tea tends to be too delicate in flavour. Good old bog-standard Co op 99 or PG Tips is the best in my opinion. My recipe differs from the traditional recipe in that I have added a wider range of dried fruit.

This recipe makes a 7 - 8 inch cake, your pan must be at least 5 inches deep.
For a 12 inch cake - treble the quantities, you will need a BIG bowl.
IMPORTANT: You will need to soak the fruit from the night before you intend to bake (a minimum of 8 hours).

Ingredients

400g Mixed Dried Fruit (I use a mix which includes candied peel) 75g pack chopped Glace Cherries 1 mug (300ml) hot strong black tea 100g butter , plus extra for greasing 2 heaped tbsp good quality orange marmalade 2 Large eggs 450g self-raising flour 175g light soft brown sugar (Muscavado) 1 tsp each ground cinnamon, allspice and ground ginger 4 tbsp milk

1. Make your tea and allow to steep for 5 minutes, then to cool for a further 10 minutes.

2. Weigh out the fruit and cherries into a large bowl, pour the tea over them. Cover the soaking
fruit with a clean towel, lid or clingfilm and leave overnight.

3. Line your cake tin with a double layer of buttered greaseproof paper, cut out an extra disc of
the paper ready to cover the cake half way through cooking.

4. Pre Heat the oven to 180 degrees C (160 degrees C for a fan oven) or Gas Mark 4.

5. Either in a saucepan or in the microwave, heat the butter and marmalade together until
melted. Set this aside to cool slightly whilst you follow the next step.

6. Weigh all the dry ingredients and sift into a large mixing bowl.

7. Now beat the eggs and milk into the cooled butter and marmalade.

8. Beat this wet ingredient mixture into the sifted dry ingredients to make a smooth batter.

9. Gently fold in the soaked fruit. Don't worry about any unabsorbed tea, it will stir into the batter.

10. Spoon into your prepared cake tin and place in the oven on a mid-low shelf.

11. Cook for 30-45 minutes, by this time the top should be golden. Now cover the cake with the prepared disc of greaseproof paper. Return it to the oven (if making a larger cake, reduce the oven temperature by 20 degrees at this time). The cake will take around 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours in total to cook (up to 3 1/2 hours for a 12 inch cake), keep an eye on it during cooking to avoid scorching, if the cake starts to burn on top turn down the heat a little. Check the cake with a skewer. It will come out cleanly when the cake is cooked.

12. This cake is best after at least 24 hours to rest. I always bake this cake a day ahead of decorating.

Hope you all have much fruity fun with this one.