Fruit Tea Bread

So I would like to claim that here is a ‘SUGAR FREE’  fruit tea bread, but the more I look into this sugar free diet malarky this may be a rather bold claim. Now there is one camp that believes that sugar free means replacing highly processed white sugar for honey or maple syrup, but the other camp believes this to be wrong and that any thing that contains to much fructose is the devil and that includes dried or fresh fruit ! I know, all very confusing.

So as I continue to learn and plough through the books on this subject I feel that as long as I manage at least a 80/20 ratio and that I am overall reducing the amount of sugar I consume, especially highly processed sugars it must all be good.

This fruit tea bread is perfect with a coffee at breakfast, as an afternoon snack with a nice cup of tea and even got the seal of approval from Luca as a great healthy after school snack. I would much rather he was having this than sweets, crisps or sugary bowls of cereal.

As well as being sugar free (ish), this bread contains no fat, there is no butter, fat or oil ! I must admit I did expect it not to work, but it is really lovely and fills the gap when you have that afternoon energy dip and start to crave everything you shouldn’t.

So back to reading ‘I Quit Sugar’, by Sarah Wilson and I will post any great recipes that I find.

Buon appetito

350g dried fruit (mixture of
raisins, chopped apricots,
sultanas, dates)
200ml freshly brewed tea
50ml maple syrup
250g wholemeal spelt flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp mixed spice
2 eggs

Put the dried fruit in a bowl and pour over the tea and maple syrup. Leave the fruit to soak in the tea and syrup for at least a few hours and preferably overnight.

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Line a 1kg/2lb loaf tin with baking parchment.

Sieve the flour into a bowl and stir in the baking powder and mixed spice. Add the fruit and any unabsorbed liquid along with the eggs. Mix everything thoroughly, then spoon into the prepared loaf tin.

Bake the tea bread in the oven for about an hour. Remove and leave it to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn it out and transfer it to a cooling rack.

Serve thickly sliced and spread with butter.