Chocolate Tea Loaf

Hi Bakers,

I hope you’re all well and never too far away from your ovens. It’s been a while since I posted my last recipe. If you’re following Rise and Shine Baking on social media, you might have seen that I’ve been very busy re-starting some of my face-to-face baking classes, which I had to cancel due to the pandemic. While I’m doing my best to re-launch more regular classes and working out general logistics of the direction I’d like to take my small business, here comes a recipe for a chocolate tea loaf.

Delicious, fool-proof, quick and easy

It’s one of those recipes you can sort of squeeze in between work and running errands, when you’re a bit short of time (like I have been) but still want a lovely homemade treat which is fool-proof and requires very little effort.

This delicious chocolate tea loaf is a cross between sweet bread and cake and is nothing but a chocoholic‘s take on tea loaf. Traditional tea loaf is full of aromatic spices and dry fruit soaked overnight in tea. My version contains cocoa powder for a rich, chocolatey flavour, and is decorated with two kinds of melted chocolate and pistachios. Why, you want to know? Because life is too short, November evenings are long and I love chocolate! It’s probably one of the easiest and quickest bakes you’ll ever come across, no electric mixer is needed. The added bonus is that it has no fat and is diary-free. 

Fragrant spices and melted chocolate

During lockdown I posted a recipe for speckled bread aka tea loaf, fruit loaf, Irish barm brack, Welsh bara brith. (They all have the same thing in common: dry fruit soaked in tea.) Several people gave it a go with grand success so I decided to revisit the recipe, tweak it a bit and give it a new life. A new life full of fragrant cloves and allspice and drizzled with melted chocolate! Here comes a super easy bake which says slow down, put the kettle on, Christmas is coming…  Enjoy.

Ingredients

Makes a 2lb/1kg loaf (Tin about 24cm long, 13cm wide, 7cm high)

For the batter

• 100g dry apricots, chopped
• 100g dry cranberries
• 100g sultanas
• 50g mixed peel
• 430ml very strong black tea, I use Earl Grey (3 tea bags, no milk or sugar)
• 1 large egg
• 300g self-raising flour
• ¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 40g cocoa powder
  Spices:
• ½ teaspoon ground ginger
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
• ¼ teaspoon allspice
• 170g caster sugar

For the chocolate drizzle

• 45g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
• 45g white chocolate, broken into pieces

To decorate

• 30g pistachios, chopped

Method

• Place all of the dry fruit: apricots, cranberries, sultanas and mixed peel in a large bowl. Pour over the tea, mix well, cover and leave to soak for at least 1 hour and 30 min, ideally overnight. Line the loaf tin with baking paper.
• Set the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/gas mark 4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, bicarbonate of soda, cocoa powder, spices and caster sugar and mix well. Stir the egg into the fruit mixture, then fold in the dry ingredients. Mix well with a spoon or spatula for about one minute or until all ingredients are combined.

• Pour the batter into the tin and level it off with a spatula or palette knife. Bake for about 1 hour and 5-10 minutes until the loaf is well risen and firm to the touch. Bear in mind however that ovens vary so to be on the safe side stick a skewer in the middle at about 55-60 minutes into the baking time. It’ll most likely be still a bit wet, in which case give it another 5-10 minutes.
• For the chocolate drizzle, put the dark chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pan with simmering water. Make sure the water doesn’t touch the bottom of the bowl. Melt the chocolate on low heat stirring frequently. Once completely melted, smooth and glossy, take it of the heat, transfer to another bowl and repeat the process with the white chocolate.

• Once the tea loaf has cooled, using a spoon pour the melted chocolate over the top in thin diagonal strips, alternating dark chocolate with white. Sprinkle with the chopped pistachios. Enjoy.

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