Sunday, June 1, 2008

Welsh Speckled Bread - Bread Baking Day #10 - Breakfast Breads


Melissa of Baking a Sweet Life is hosting this month's Bread Baking Day, and she has chosen a theme of breakfast breads. She has asked us to share your family's/country's traditional breakfast bread.

Yesterday, as I was flicking through The Age Good Weekend magazine, I saw a recipe for Welsh Speckled Bread which sounded like a perfect recipe for this event. Even though the origin of this recipe is Welsh, not Australian, because Australia is a country of many different immigrant populations, I think this bread qualifies as being traditional for at least some Aussies. It relies on self-raising flour as the rising agent instead of yeast, and forms a dense, heavy loaf. The recipe, by Matthew Evans, is as follows:

500g mixed dried fruit
100g sugar
300ml hot tea
500g self raising flour, sifted
2 tablespoons marmalade
2 teaspoons mixed spice
1 beaten egg
warmed honey to glaze

Put the dried fruit and sugar in a bowl, and pour over the hot tea. Leave the mixture to sit overnight so that the fruit absorbs most of the tea.

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Grease and line a two litre loaf tin (or in my case, a slightly smaller loaf tin and three mini loaf pans).

Place the fruit in a large bowl, and stir in the sifted flour and spice, then add the beaten egg and combine well. Push the dough into the prepared loaf tin/s, and bake in the preheated oven for 60-75minutes or until the bread is cooked when tested with a skewer. Remove hte read from the oven and immediately brush the top of the bread with the warmed honey to give the top a lovely, glossy appearance.

Cool the bread in the tin for around 5 minutes, then turn onto a wire rack to cool completely. To serve, spread generous slices with butter or margarine. Yum!!!

13 comments:

Aparna Balasubramanian said...

The name got my attention and sounds like it would be tasty. Certainly looks good.

Finla said...

Yummy delicious;
For me with genorous slice with butter please

Chef Jeena said...

Welsh Bread looks really tasty. :-)

giz said...

This bread sounds both good and easy. I like the self rising flour part - Yeast and I have a love/hate relationship going on. At present we're not on speaking terms.

Y said...

I saw this recipe too, and thought it sounded really lovely.

Swati said...

Thats something new and delicious.. The name is very catchy!!

Rosie said...

Oh this bread looks so good!! I would love a slice with just butter spread on top mmmmmm

Rosie x

Astra Libris said...

Mmmm... tea and marmalade in bread?! I'm awe, and so excited... I can't wait to try this... Thank you SO much for the recipe, and for introducing me to a new bread!

NKP said...

How convenient to have your tea right in your breakfast bread! Looks tasty, what spices are in the spice mix?

Anonymous said...

I love the idea of putting tea into breads and cakes. Its looks great.

zorra said...

I love dried fruits in bread, looks delicious!

Lien said...

What a great idea, lovely bread!

Anonymous said...

Anything with the word "speckled" in the name and marmalade in the ingredients must be good!