Whittard’s Tippy Assam tea makes a quirky brew but I felt it deserved a more elevated purpose. After a long evening in the kitchen, making food that needed to be made, I felt like rounding the proceedings off with a little experimental culinary frippery. By happy coincidence I concocted the most delicious tea loaf ever!

As a member of the WI I frown upon food waste, so when I saw the contents of my fridge turning limp I set to making use of what food was lingering. Five hours later I had some robust food ready for eating (a large tub of coleslaw, an apple pie, a baguette of garlic bread and some soup). After such heavy industry I felt I’d earned a bit of play time. I gathered up some discarded raisins, some brown sugar left from the Christmas cakes and the last dregs of a bag of flour. There’s no doubt that Whittard’s tea makes a luxury brew (their English Rose tea is my favourite) and the strong, malty Tippy Assam sparked some inspiration for a pleasant accompaniment to my regular cuppa.

Here is my vague recipe if you fancy a go:


Tippy Assam Tea Loaf

Ingredients

2 x teabags or equivalent in loose leaf - Tippy Assam tea.
12 oz dried mixed fruit
8 oz dark brown sugar
10 0z self raising flour
1 large egg (or 2 small eggs) beaten

Method

Preheat oven to 140°

Infuse the tea into ¾ pint of hot water until strongly brewed.

Pour water over dried fruit, stir in sugar and allow to soak for as long as possible. (I only managed an hour - and it still tastes delicious - but several hours is preferable, even overnight.)

Leave any unabsorbed tea in the bowl and add the flour and beaten eggs and mix together to form a moist dough.

Transfer mixture to a greased, lined 2lb loaf tin and cook for approx 1¾ hours. Test bake after about an hour with a skewer, if skewer comes out of mix with wet dough the cake is not done. If the cake is not cooked through but the top is beginning to burn cover the tin loosely with tin foil and allow to continue cooking.

Once cooked through remove from oven and allow to stand for a few minutes before turning onto a rack to cool completely.

Serve cold in slices and spread with butter. Mmmm!

I chose Tippy Assam tea as it is a strong, malty flavoured tea which gives an extra tang to the loaf, however any tea will do. To complement this strength of flavour I chose a dark brown sugar. If you choose a lighter blend of tea substitute the dark brown sugar for a light brown alternative.