A STICKY EARL GREY TEA LOAF

w/ salted honey butter

Good morning!

The weather here in London has been nothing short of foul for a few days now and so I declare it the perfect time to make this tea loaf - it is the epitome of raining day baking! More on this sticky cosy bake in a moment.

I wanted to let you all know, in case you haven’t seen already, that I am hosting a canteen lunch fundraiser at the warehouse on Saturday March 23rd, in collaboration with #CookForPalestine, supported by our brilliant Suppers team. All profits raised will be sent directly to our chosen partnered charities: Medical Aid Palestine, Anera Org and the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund. I will be cooking a delicious menu of recipes from the brilliant cookbook FALASTIN by Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley.

If you would like to come and eat with us, supporting a brilliant cause while you are at it, make sure to book a ticket before they are all gone! It will be the biggest event myself and Virginia have ever taken on, aiming to serve 150 meals throughout the day. I’m really excited to meet some of you there and be able to raise these much needed funds, through a day of delicious food.

Now, back to the loaf…

the feminine urge to put this salted honey butter on everything

STICKY EARL GREY TEA LOAF w/ a salted honey butter

This recipe is incredible easy, simple and quick to whip up. You can substitute any dried fruit in place of the prunes if they aren’t for you - although I would like to make a case for prunes truly shining here. I have several housemates who profess not to like them, but all fell in love with this loaf, so maybe give it a go. Equally, if you aren’t a fan of Earl Grey tea, you can substitute with your favourite black tea. If you would like to make these even more on the malt loaf side of things, you can substitute the black treacle and honey for malt extract, using it to brush the top of the loaf too. I couldn’t find malt extract and so developed this recipe for what I had in the house and it has worked out to be just heavenly.

For the loaf:

2 x earl grey tea bags (or another black tea of your choice)

150ml freshly boiled water

250g pitted prunes (or another dried fruit)

1 tbsp salted butter

80g black treacle

80g runny honey, plus 1 tsp for brushing the baked loaf

100g dark brown sugar

1 x orange, zested

2 eggs

300g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

For the salted honey butter:

100g unsalted butter, softened

1 tbsp runny honey

1 tsp smoked flakey salt

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 160c. Line and grease a large loaf tin.

2. In a large bowl add the prunes, tea bags, freshly boiled water and tablespoon of butter. Give it a good stir and set to one side to soak while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the treacle, honey, dark brown sugar, orange zest and eggs, until smooth.

4. In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.

5. Add the flour mix to the sugar & eggs mix, folding through until no dry patches of flour remains.

6. Finally, remove and discard the tea bags from the prunes. Then fold the soaked prunes into the cake batter, pouring all the soaking liquid in with them. Fold this through until you have a consistent mix.

7. Pour the cake batter into your loaf tin, level the top with the back of a spoon and then bake in the oven for an hour, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

8. While the cake is baking, whip together the butter, honey and salt, set this to one side.

9. Once the cake is out of the oven, brush the top of the loaf 1tsp of honey and leave to cool completely in the tin.

10. Serve thick slices spread with the salted honey butter and enjoy with a cup of tea.