Traditional Welsh Bara Brith

Bara brith – which can be translated to ‘speckled bread’ – is a truly delicious Welsh loaf cake. Packed full of fruit (which is soaked in black tea), this cake is absolutely perfect for serving spread with good Welsh butter, with a nice cup of tea on the side.

Bara brith is a cake that I have loved all of my life. It’s one of those really comforting tastes – it reminds me of childhood. My nain made Bara brith often, and so it reminds me of her and our trips to Anglesey to visit her.

I wanted to share this recipe with you because it is beautiful, easy to make and NEVER goes wrong! It’s the perfect loaf cake to bake if you’re visiting someone too – if you know someone with a newborn, bake this and give it to them! It’s perfect for one handed snacking with a baby in the other hand.

Love this? You’ll also love my Lemon and Sultana Cake, Blackberry Loaf Cake, Apple Loaf Cake, Summer Fruits Cake, Coconut and Mango Loaf Cake, White Chocolate Birthday Loaf Cake, Hidden Crème Egg Loaf Cake and Lime and Ginger Cake.

Bara Brith – The Ingredients

• Mixed Fruit – any kind of dried mixed fruit will work here, from your most basic to fancier varieties. I like to keep it simple with this mixed fruit. This is a perfect recipe for using up odds and ends of dried fruit in your cupboard. A selection of dried raisins, sultanas, apricots, cranberries and cherries would be lovely. Just make sure that they’re all diced to about the same size.
• Light brown sugar – this is a key ingredient and gives Bara brith its delicious caramel-like flavour. Don’t switch with any other type of sugar.
• Hot black tea – any kind of black tea will work, such as English breakfast tea. Steep it for about 5 minutes before using in this recipe. If you’re using a teabag, one will be enough for this amount of liquid.
• Self-raising flour – use white flour.
• Mixed spice and ground ginger– these spices give bara brith its distinctive, warming flavour. Mixed spice is a blend of cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice, so if you can’t get hold of the blend, you can make your own.
• Egg – necessary for binding. Use a medium or large fresh egg.
• Butter – brings a richness to the cake. Salted or unsalted is fine.

Cooking the Cake

Cooking bara brith is straightforward – just follow the steps carefully. Here are some extra tips from me:

• When you’re soaking the fruit, leave it somewhere room temperature. I made the mistake of leaving it on a very cold windowsill once, and it was quite solid in the morning! If this does happen to you, no worries – just put it somewhere warm for thirty minutes and it will loosen up, if stirring doesn’t work.
• It is important that you make sure the mixture is really well combined before putting in the loaf tin, otherwise it won’t cook evenly.
• Use a loaf tin liner if you have one! It makes the faff of lining and greasing the loaf tin yourself a lot easier. You just need to pop it in the tin, no greasing required.
• Check that the loaf is cooked through before removing it from the oven. You can do this by poking the middle of it with a skewer – if it comes out clean, it’s done. If it isn’t done, just give it 10 more minutes and check again. You can repeat as needed.

More wonderful Welsh recipes:

• Classic Welsh Rarebit Sandwich with Sausage
• Welsh Style Potato Dauphinoise (Potato au Gratin)
• Anglesey Eggs