Earl Grey Tea Loaf

This was my first attempt at homemade bread of any kind.  It was surprisingly way less complicated than I had anticipated.  Note:  for those of you who hate raisins, you might make an exception!

Soak a bunch of raisins and dried cranberries in Earl Grey tea and the zest of an orange overnight.  Use 3 tea bags and 3/4 cup of water to get that tea really potent.  I've never tried to rehydrated dried fruit but that's really a genius idea for packing extra flavor into whatever you're soaking the fruit in.

When I read the ingredient "mixed spice" I knew some research was needed.  Turns out this is a blend of allspice, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, cardamom, coriander and nutmeg.  After I followed the recipe I found online I tasted the blend.  It did weird things to my tongue but it tasted really good!  I read the reviews on this recipe and everyone said it sounded authentic so I just went with it. To make this spice blend at home:  2 teaspoons each of allspice, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger; 1 teaspoon each of cardamom and coriander. 

I drained the fruit because there was still some tea in the bottom and the recipe didn't specify whether or not to use that juice.  Get a mixing  bowl out and combine the fruit with one whisked egg, sugar, self-raising flour, 1tsp of the mixed spice, a couple more dashes of nutmeg and the juice of the orange you zested the day before. Combine this until everything is mostly wet.  If it looks a little dry that's alright.


Line a loaf pan with waxed paper and spoon the batter in the pan.  Whack that in a 350 Fahrenheit oven for about 1 hour and 10 minutes.

When the bread has about 15 minutes left on it put 2 more tea bags into some boiling water in a pan on the stove.  Add the zest and juice of a lemon and boil for a few minutes and then remove the bags.  Add some sugar and let it boil without stirring until it has reduced by half.  There you go!  Tea lemon syrup.  This smelled so yummy and I was very excited to find out this would be poured on top of the loaf!






Once the loaf pokes clean with a skewer in the middle pull it out and put it on a wire rack still in the pan.  Poke a bunch of holes in the top with the skewer and pour the tea syrup over top.

Allow the loaf to cool a little in the pan before taking it out to place directly on the rack.

I called up my friend Becca and we had tea time with her pretty tea cups and this bread.  It was so yummy!  She said, "The tea in the bread is a really great undertone.  Not overwhelming at all but really good."  She is a raisin-hater to the core and told me not to tell anyone she loved this because she's got an image to uphold.  Haha, well Bec... I think the secret's out!  Luckily I don't think anyone from your family reads my blog.

These last two pictures were taken with Instragram.... love that app!  Just wanted to play around with it a little :)  By the way, the syrup soaked into the bread a lot on the top so it made it gooey.  If you're not a fan of that use less syrup.  We thought it was great as is!