Grandma Maudie’s Cranberry Teabread
So you know when you have that afternoon lull and you think ‘hmm, what I need is a nice cup of tea and piece of cake?’ Well Hubby had exactly that feeling this afternoon – a sudden, inexplicable craving for Christmas cake. A quick rummage in the cupboards revealed a bit of a motley assortment of half packets of various golden sultanas, raisins and ‘fruit mix’ (arrghhh! Peel!) and it got me reminiscing about when me and the much missed and slightly bonkers Grandma Maudie (you know, the one who used share her evening glass of Baileys with the dog) made an Earl Grey teabread together, back at the original English Towers, my Mum’s lovely pad in leafy ol’ Hertfordshire. We couldn’t find half the stuff we needed, but we ‘made do’ with a right dodgy old selection of pack-ends and bits and bobs – resorting to the cocktail cabinet for a few maraschino cherries too, as I recall. Anyhoo, the end result was fairly pleasant as far as I remember, so I set to work and here’s my approximation, with dried cranberries replacing the cocktail cherries, though!
400g total dried fruit (sultanas/currants/raisins, etc)
50g dried cranberries (or those lovely dried sour cherries would be nice)
200ml hot, strong tea (Earl Grey if you’re posh)
1 tbsp treacle
Juice of ½ lemon
1 egg, beaten
60g golden caster sugar
275g self raising flour
1 tsp mixed spice
So first, measure out 400g of any old dried fruit (don’t listen to those old windbags who guff on about the proportion of raisins to sultanas – they’re all just wrinkly little ugly things, let’s face it (the dried fruit, I mean, not the windbags. Although…). Add in the cranberries, then stir the tbsp of treacle into the hot tea, chuck in the lemon juice and pour it all over the fruit. Leave it, covered, for as long as you can bear (overnight would be brilliant, but at least an hour or two) to really plump up the fruit:
Then when you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 160/gas 3. Generously butter and flour a 2lb loaf tin (yes, even if it’s a non-stick one) and set aside. Beat the egg and stir it into the fruit mixture, then add in the sugar, flour and spice. If you don’t have mixed spice you can just add a pinch each of nutmeg/cinnamon/whatever you do have.
Spoon the mixture into your prepared tin:
… and bake it for about an hour to an hour and a quarter, covered loosely with foil for about the first 40 minutes. When a knife poked into the centre comes out clean, it’s ready.
It won’t keep forever, but it’s rather nice warm spread with a little butter, so you shouldn’t have that problem. Oh and it’s virtually fat free, too. Bit of a bonus, there.
Serve with a nice cup of tea, or, in suitable homage to Grandma Maudie, split a generous glass of Baileys with the dog.
35 Responses to “Grandma Maudie’s Cranberry Teabread”
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I love me a bit of grandma.
Looks fab though…..am thinking toasted with butter n a cup o tea maybe………
Sounds looovely. So many of the bought tea loaves have malt in them, which I can’t eat without wanting to tear my skin off my body with my fingernails. Bit of a drawback, that.
This one sounds as if it might work quite well with a mix of cranberries and blueberries too! Mmm. How about figs?
Bless her heart. Yup, she was shit at Triv alright:
‘Grandma!!! Shush!, it’s a BOYS’ question!!!’
Are you ready, to ride again?
PS nice buns.
And yes, bring it on, baby, I’m ready! x
You know, phew, I came in here a few days ago and instead of the usual gastronomic saliva-inducing feast for the eyes I’ve come to know and expect, I got something all green and barnacles like what a naughty Kermit would get on his wobbly bits after a night in a red light area.
Oh thank the Lord it was all just a dream and normal service is restored.
I can get back to being permanently starving now. Phew…
[...] we’d hoped it would be, and I continued with the family theme, making Grandma Maudie’s cranberry teabread, as well as chicken and broccoli pie with step by step [...]