Earl grey tea fruit loaf by Mary Berry recipe

I adore fruitcake in any permutation so when I stumbled on this recipe I knew I needed to give it a bash. You stir everything together easily by hand and if you like butter on your fruit bread, this is the perfect vessel in which to enjoy it.

The recipe is also a little mystery because the one I made was slightly adapted from one I saw on the Delicious magazine website and was by Paul Hollywood. It somehow mysteriously disappeared from the link I saved and after a number of searches, it’s gone. I then found this version by Mary Berry and it’s more or less the same recipe I made.

His recipe had used black tea and less of it, and I recall straining off the liquid, but I liked Early Grey tea which gives it that nice bergamot citrus flavour.

I used a mix of whatever dried fruit I had lying around. There were raisins, currents and sultanas, even perhaps a few cranberries. I don’t think it matters too much. It’s delicious served with loads of butter and of course a cup of tea.

Prep Time:10

Cook Time:1 30

Ingredients

350 g raisins currents & sultanas
300 ml strongly brewed hot Earl Grey tea
275 g self-raising flour
225 g light or dark muscovado sugar or use any brown sugar
1 large free-range egg beaten

Instructions

Place all the fruit in a bowl and cover it with hot tea. Leave to soak overnight.
Preheat the oven to 150C/130C Fan and line a 900g/2lb loaf tin with non-stick baking paper.
Add the flour, sugar and egg to the bowl of soaked fruit (if there is a little excess liquid this is fine) and mix thoroughly.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth out the top.
Bake for 1¾ hours, or until the cake is risen and is just firm to the touch, but check it after 1¼ hours to see how it is doing. Loosely cover with a piece of tin foil from about halfway through to prevent over-browning if necessary. Leave to cool in the tin for about 10 minutes.
Turn out the loaf and remove the paper.
Serve thick slices with a generous spread of butter.

Servings: 1 loaf

Author: Mary Berry