Tuesday, January 29, 2008

FRUIT AND NUT TEA BREAD

It feels so very nice to sit down with family or friends to have a chit-chat about life & its happenings. If there is some hot tea / coffee and some homemade cake or sweet-bread to go with it, the conversation would be sooo much better.

I have adapted the following recipe from BAKING SHEET's . I did a few alternations & here's the end result.




Ing -
1 cup - maida
1 cup - wheatflour
1/2 tsp - baking soda
3/4 tsp - baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp dry ginger powder
2 cardamoms - powdered
1 cup white sugar
3/4 cup curd
4 tbsp melted butter
1-1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1/2 cup - candied cherries chopped
1/4 cup - walnuts crushed coarsely with hands
1/4 cup - tutti-fruitty
a handful of raisins
a handful of chopped almonds

Method -
Preheat oven to 180C.
Grease one loaf pan & keep ready
Seive the flours, baking powder, baking soda, cardamom powder, salt & the spices together.
Add them into a bowl.
Beat the sugar, curd, melted butter well
Add the vanilla extract and the egg.
Add this mixture into the flour gradually, stirring all the while
When both are well incorporated adding fruits & the nuts
Fold all of it well
If the batter is very very dry, you can consider adding a wee bit of milk (normal temperature), but remember the batter has to be very thick.
I used my hands (clean one's please) to scoop the batter into the loaf
Using a spatula smoothen the surface.
Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

The crust browned very fast so when the cake was baked about 30 mins I covered it with a tissue paper to save it from burning.

I served it once with butter & once with jam.

It vanished pretty quickly & I really loved the walnuts & cherries in it.

I am also sending this over to lovely Bindiya of In Love With Food fame for her event "These are a few of my favourite things".

23 comments:

amna said...

that looks lovely!!

FH said...

I love quick bread and it's yummy for breakfast too. Looks great Sheela!:)

Finla said...

I love cakes like these. I can eat them slice after slice :-)

Dhivya said...

i love cakes.It would have tasted good.thanks for sharing

Meera said...

Looks wonderful.

Shella said...

Nags - thanks dear.

Asha - yes it was yummm.

Happy Cook - me too.

Dhivya - it did dear. Try it out.

Meera - thanks. Its quite easy to make.

Deeba PAB said...

Does look great...no wonder it dissapeared so fast Shella!

Cynthia said...

It feels so very nice to sit down with family or friends to have a chit-chat about life & its happenings. If there is some hot tea / coffee and some homemade cake or sweet-bread to go with it, the conversation would be sooo much better. - this is perfection, you are so very right!

Kribha said...

I wanted to make a fruit cake during the christmas but never found the time. Your cake looks so moist and fruity. Nice one Shella.

Ramya's Mane Adige said...

Beautiful!! It looks really soft n fluffy

Shella said...

PAB - it sure did, n was one of the best in my list.

Cynthia - "good things in life" that's what they are

Kribha - it was not very moist. It had a bready texture dear, but very desirable.

Ramya - thanks for dropping by.

Sia said...

shella, i like the idea of adding wheat flour with maida. wonderful cake. i just baked fruit cake 2 days back and it looks very much like what u have here although the recipe is quite different from urs:)

Archy said...

Wow.. Yummy eggless bread with wheat flour.. Lovely.. shall surely try dis an let u knw.. :) !!

Rachel said...

Lovely loaf there!

I used my hands (clean one's please) huh!!! :D

Mishmash ! said...

I dont know if you remember, in kerala , we used to get a similar one, an yellow sponge cakes studded with tutti-frutti...thats what came to my mind when i saw this post :)

Shn

Manju said...

this is a yummy teatime and breakfast cake!! check out my banana bread as well!!!

Seena said...

I really love to have such good things in life..Now miss everyone back home..yeah, me too thought abt the Keralite bread, as mishmash did..:)

Shella said...

Sia - I always liking some wheatflour for the healthfactor. It definitley does not hamper the taste or texture of the cake anywhere.

Archy - there is one egg dear.

Rachel - huh - me tooo ;-)

Mishmash - never had the pleasure of having the one that you are referring to. Maybe if I ask my mom she would know.....

Superchef - yes its excellent for b/fast. I will surely check that out.

Seena - yes, good things are hard to come by these days.

Emily said...

Beautiful! It looks so fruity and delicious.

Mansi said...

Nice one! I am so long due on making this..I need to ramp up with my cooking to-do list!:D

Unknown said...

Hi Shella! I love fruit bread and cakes :) I had prepared a fruit cake in my blog using Mishmash's recipe, I will try yours to make this fruit bread:) Thanks for the recipe and thanks for visiting my blog which helped me discover yours :) Very glad to meet another fellow blogger from Kerala :)

Rina said...

Love this one dear... Sure to try to make weekend tea time with hubby gr8.

Anonymous said...

Who knows where to download XRumer 5.0 Palladium?
Help, please. All recommend this program to effectively advertise on the Internet, this is the best program!