Eggless Irish Tea Brack
I have been trying my hands at a lot of new things lately. Especially, the recipes that call for use of oven. When I was coming to Stockholm, I promised myself to practice baking to an extent where my husband is convinced to buy me an oven when we are back in India. That was a smart strategy, isn’t it?
So, in my hit list, I had one item that bakers make in the initial years of baking, a cake! But, somehow, I couldn’t gather enough courage to make one. Finally, I got determined to bake a cake yesterday. But, the typical me would not be happy with usual stuff. I crave for unique. So, I needed a recipe that was easy and unique. Suddenly, I recalled the tea cake that my boss made for fika (a term used in Sweden for coffee with cake) once. Well, I now knew what to bake. And, here I am with my first ever attempt at cake, err Eggless Irish Tea Brack.
Oh! I forgot to mention, I made it with Whole Wheat Flour 🙂
Ingredients:
- Tea leaves – 3 tbsp (or more if you like strong tea flavor)
- Water – 400 ml (assuming it will reduce while boiling, we need 350 ml for the cake)
- Whole Wheat Flour – 250 gm
- Brown sugar – 150 gm
- Baking powder – 1 tbsp
- Salt – ½ tsp
- Cinnamon powder (or if you have allspice mix) – 1 tsp
- Fruit mix (I had only raisins and dates, but you can add dried pineapple, sultanas, currants, prunes, etc) – 250 gm
- Oil for greasing the baking tin
- Bread crumbs or powdered oats – 2 tbsp
- Flax seeds – 1 tbsp (or 1 egg if you want to go for the egg version of the cake)
- Water for soaking flax seeds – 3 tbsp
Method:
- Brew tea the night before or atleast 5 hours before you bake the cake.
- Sieve and add the fruit mix. Let it rest overnight or atleast 5 hours. Some recipes call for 2 hours but I didn’t get good results with that much time.
- Soak the flax seeds in water and leave them overnight or 4 hours atleast.
- The next day, or after 4-5 hours of soaking as mentioned above, grind the flax seeds.
- Preheat the oven at 180 C.
- Sieve flour into a mixing bowl. Add sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon powder.
- Add the soaked fruits and the remaining liquid, crushed flax seeds, and mix well with a spatula. The batter consistency will be thick and a little difficult to manage. Fret not. It is just fine.
- Grease the baking tin and sprinkle the bread crumbs or powdered oats. This will avoid the cake from sticking onto the tin walls.
- Transfer the batter to the baking pan and bake for 60 mins. Do the toothpick test and adjust the baking time. Depending on the oven you may need more.
- Remove from oven and let it cool over a wire rack. Do not cut when the cake is hot to avoid gumminess.
- Enjoy with Vanilla sauce or ice cream or just like that. After all it is a tea cake.
Note: You can garnish with granulated sugar. Garnish before you put the baking tin in the oven. Reduce the sugar in cake if you decide to garnish.
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