Yorkshire Gold Tea Loaf

Today is Yorkshire Day, celebrated every August 1st since 1975. Yorkshire Day was created to raise the profile of the county's heritage.

This recipe for a Yorkshire Gold Tea Loaf came from one of those cards you pick up in the entrance way to supermarkets. This particular recipe came from Waitrose and I have to confess I'd never even heard of Yorkshire Day until I picked up the card!! Maybe not surprising as I grew up about as far south as you can get.

As I made this I was slightly dubious as the weight of each ingredient seemed so minimal. The volume of the cake mixture once complete was very slight and the tin seemed quite empty. The recipe did call for a 17x10cm loaf tin and I only had a 20x10cm. It did make for a quite shallow cake and I might be tempted in future to double the ingredients to make a full size loaf!!

HOWEVER, I wasn't at all disappointed with the way this cake tasted. It's flavoursome and light, a spongy fruit cake which I will definitely be making again! It's perfect with a cup of tea...I had a cup of Yorkshire Gold but you could make this with your usual brew. This cake would also be great to take with you on a day out with a flask of tea. I enjoyed a slice by the seaside!

This month's AlphaBakes letter of the month has just been announced too and it's 'T', so I'm going to enter my Tea Loaf. AlphaBakes is hosted by Ros at the More Than Occasional Baker and Caroline at Caroline Makes.

Ingredients

3 tea bags

30g sultanas

15g raisins

15g currants

10g dark glace cherries, chopped (I only had red glace cherries and they work just as well!)

60g butter

85g light brown sugar

1 medium egg, beaten

100g plain flour

1/4 tsp bicarb of soda

1/4 tsp mixed spice

Measure out 250ml boiling water and then add 3 tea bags, leave to brew for 10 minutes. Measure out all the fruit and place in a bowl, once the tea has brewed pour it over the top and leave to soak for 1 hour. After an hour drain the fruit but keep the liquid to one side.

Preheat the oven to 180c/160c fan/gas . Grease and line a 17x10cm loaf tin. Cream the sugar and butter together until fluffy, then add in the egg until well mixed.

Sift the flour, bicarb, mixed spice and a pinch of salt over the top of the butter, sugar and egg mix and fold them together. Next fold in the dried fruit and 60ml (4tbsp) of the reserved tea. Pour into the loaf tin and bake for 45 minutes. In my 20x10cm tin this only took about 38-40 minutes. Once a skewer comes out clean, remove from the oven and remove from the tin and leave to cool on a tin.

* Adapted from a Waitrose Recipe Card