Tea Barmbrack- A traditional Irish fruit-cake

Soak the dried fruits in cold tea overnight i.e take the fruits in the bowl, pour water to cover them well, immerse your tea bags in that water and cover with a lid. Soak overnight.

In a blender, put all the ingredients for the mixed spice except ginger powder and grind to a fine, dry powder. Do not use water. To this powder, add your ginger powder and mix well. The fragrant mixed spice is ready.

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C.

In a bowl, take the flour, sugar and baking powder and mix till everything looks uniform and well mixed. Beat your egg well in a separate bowl.

In the first bowl, make a small round well in the middle of the dry ingredients and put your beaten egg in it. With your wooden spoon, mix the egg and the dry ingredients together till they both are well mixed with each other. Keep aside.

Separate the soaked dried fruit from the tea water but preserve the water. Do not throw it away.

Throw in the fruit and gently mix with the flour and egg mixture. Taking the tea water, make a wet batter of medium consistency, which is neither too thin nor too thick! Note that it should have any lumps.

Add a dash of that whiskey but not too much or it will overpower the flavor of tea that we want in a brack. Finally, add 1 tsp of the homemade mixed spice.

Pour your batter into a greased tin and bake at 180 degrees C for 90 minutes. This batter has lots of moisture in it and takes time to cook through.

After the brack has completely cooled down, cover it with cling film and keep it like that for 12 hours so that it soaks up the flavors of tea and whiskey and dried fruits well.

Next day, slice up your brack, smear generously with butter and Enjoy!