Sultana Tea Loaf Recipe
Tea Loaf is an easy cake and gets its flavour (and moisture) from tea. the fruits – in this case sultanas – is soaked in strong tea for 2 hours before the cake is made up. It is quite an old fashioned cake. This recipe came from my Grandmother’s handwritten recipe book which I sometime dip into to find wonderfully simple and delicious cake recipes. the last recipe I did was Marmalade Cake
My Grandmother’s handwritten recipe book strikes again with this wonderful Tea Loaf recipe
It is the sort of cake about which my Grandmother would have said there’s nothing in it – meaning it is low on sugar and there is no fat – and can’t make you put weight on!!
Tea Loaf
Wikepedia tells me that Tea Loaf is a traditional cake and is mainly associated with Yorkshire. Well I feel on firm ground here as my Grandmother lived all her life in or near the wonderful seaside Yorkshire town of Scarborough where my Mother grew up and always loved.
To honour that county I used Yorkshire Tea to soak the fruit. It is my favourite drinking tea anyway. I did have to convert the liquid quantity of tea required in the recipe (1 and half gills) to millilitres
Tea Loaf requires a long slow cook. The recipe said to use a 1lb loaf tin but I only had a 2lb tin which was fine. The 1lb would have made a much taller loaf.
Tea Loaf can be eaten by itself but it is delicious spread with butter – and may be even with a little cheese (Wenslydale of course!)
Tea Loaf Variations
Some Tea Loaf recipes now add mixed spice or use Earl Grey tea to ring the changes. All these things are good – but try it good and plain first!
If you don’t have sultanas – you can use a mix of currants and/or raisins. And you can use any tea – just make it good and strong.
Tea Loaf Recipe
Ingredients
- 250g / 8oz sultanas
- 225ml warm, strong tea
- 175g /6oz self-raising flour
- 100g /3ozs brown sugar
- 1 egg, beaten
Cooking Directions
- Make up the tea with two tea bags and steep for 5 minutes
- Put the sultanas in a bowl
- Pour the tea over the fruit and leave to soak at least 2 hours.
- Preheat oven to 160 degrees C
- Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin
- Sift the flour into a large bowl.
- Add sugar and the egg
- The add the fruit with any liquid tea
- Mix well
- Pour into the loaf tin
- Bake for one hour then check if done with a skewer
- If not done, then leave for another few minutes and check again
- Allow to cool in the tin before turning out
Stumbled across this recipe last week and I’ve made 26 tea loaves as family and friends loved it so much they put their orders in for a few each! It’s so easy to make and of course eat! …….
Wow! That’s amazing! That’s a lot of loaves! 🙂
amazing
I was telling my daughter that my godmother made tea cake. I then googled the cake and lots of recipes came up. Your one however the photo reminded me of Ivy’s cake ❤️ I shall be making it soon thank you x
Scrummy… This Tea Loaf is de-lish. I make them for mum every week. Mum says just like old times. Made with basic ingredients and no yuppie add ons as she says. Thank you
That’s great! Simple cooking is often the best!!
Just made this. Can’t believe you can make something so tasty with so few ingredients. Grandmothers knew best.
Indeed they did! Best recipes ever! 🙂
I absolutely love this recipe – I’ve made it weekly since I first found it about a month ago. It’s economical, fat free and so so delicious! Thank you so much for sharing it ❤️
Thank you! I love that you love it! And thank you for dropping by and saying. Baking doesn’t have to be complex to be delicious!!
Going to try this tomorrow for sure – I love tea loaves and this one looks excellent; And I always eat tea loaf with cheese – perfection!