Gluten Free Irish Tea Loaf
Gluten Free Bara Brith
Hello dear friends,
Today I’m a day earlier than usual to bring you a lovely Irish tea bread (in the sense that pumpkin bread is a bread that is!)
This is a unique loaf, filled to the brim with tangy dried fruit, all soaked in black tea. The bitterness of the tea plays so well with the sweet and sour fruit that this becomes an irresistible treat.
The soaking of the raisins here reminds me of a hotel restaurant I worked at in the late 90’s/early 2000’s.
The signature salad when we opened the restaurant was a huge tossed salad situation with white raisins (sultanas) soaked in sparkling wine, they would become slightly fizzy and very juicy and when you ate the salad you encountered little jewels that would pop and fizz in your mouth.
It was so nice with the rich homemade bacon ranch dressing (because midwest) and crunchy romaine.
Yum. I’m going to make that salad again.
Eventually, costs were cut, and the raisins were soaked in boxed white wine instead of sparkling. It wasn’t even close to the same.
Such is life eh?
Here in this lovely loaf called Bara Brith in the land of its inception there’s no reason to cheap out on the soaking liquid. Pick a strong black tea that you love the flavor of. I’ve used a breakfast tea here but something with bergamot or other citrus sounds appealing as well.
I’ve also included chopped apricots, not exactly traditional, which add a lovely tang. If you have dried cranberries (crazy raisins my son calls them) I’d bet they would make a lovely loaf as well.
Check out a few of my other favorite quick breads here:
Happy Baking,
Rachel
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Gluten Free Irish Tea Loaf
yield: 1 8x4 loaf
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