Cake in the House | Mulled Wine & Cranberry Tea Bread

Declare mulled wine season open and seek out fresh cranberries for this spiced cake (it’s also a good way to use up leftovers, come January).

Serves 12

A wine-mulling spice bag*
200ml light, fruity red wine
1 tbsp clear honey
75g ready-to-eat dried figs, chopped
50g crystallised stem ginger, chopped
75g blanched almonds, chopped
50g dried cranberries
50g dried sour cherries
100g light brown soft sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
Zest of 2 oranges
100g fresh cranberries
225g self-raising flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground allspice

For the topping:
75g dried cranberries (or dried sour cherries, or sultanas)
2 tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice
4 tbsp redcurrant jam

1 Start by lining a buttered 7cm deep loaf tin with baking paper. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 160C/140C Fan/Gas 2-3.

2 Place the spice bag in a pan with the red wine and honey and slowly bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally. Leave over a very low heat for 5 mins, then set aside.

3 Mix together the figs, ginger, almonds, dried cranberries, cherries and sugar. Remove the spice bag from the mulled wine, then pour the warm wine over the dried fruit and leave to soak for 30 mins.

4 Stir the eggs, orange zest and the fresh cranberries into the soaked dried fruit. Next, sift in the flour, cinnamon and allspice and mix well.

5 Spoon the mixture into the prepared loaf tin and bake for 55 mins. Leave to cool in the tin, turning out once cool.

6 To make the topping, gently heat the cranberries, orange juice and jam in a pan over a low heat, stirring until dissolved.

7 Brush the top of the loaf with the topping, then spoon the cranberries along the middle of the loaf and leave to cool before serving.

Cook’s note: If you can’t get dried cranberries or dried sour cherries you can swap for the same weight of sultanas

Taken from Comfort: A Winter Cookbook (Ryland Peters & Small). Photography: © Ryland Peters & Small

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More bakes for this month…

More from our blog…

Recipe: Smoked toffee apple bourbon

What’s the only thing better than a sticky toffee apple? This tipsy toffee apple brew, especially when sipped beside the fire

There are a few stages to this, but once made the syrups will last a few weeks in the fridge, so there’s no need to rush through it. The first step is to make a simple syrup, which you will then use to make a caramelised simple syrup that will give the bourbon a beautiful toffee taste.
 

Simple syrup

‘Cups’ are used here not in any exact way, but merely to show that we want the volume of sugar and water to be the same, and so you may as well pour each into the same cup to measure out.

2 cups water
2 cups granulated sugar

1 Heat water and sugar gently in a saucepan until the sugar has dissolved, then bring to the boil and simmer until the liquid turns clear.

2 When completely cool, pour into a jar and store in the fridge.
 

Caramelised simple syrup

This caramelised syrup recipe is adapted from Homemade Liqueurs and Infused Spirits by Andrew Schloss (Storey Publishing).

1 cup granulated sugar
2 cups simple syrup

1 Heat the sugar in a small saucepan on a medium-high heat until it starts to turn brown at the edges. Stir with a wooden spoon. The sugar will turn lumpy. Keep on stirring for a few mins until it turns deep orange and completely liquid.

2 Stand back and carefully pour in the simple syrup. The mixture will bubble furiously and the sugar will turn solid. Keep heating and stirring and the lump of caramelised sugar will slowly dissolve into the syrup.

3 When cool, pour through a strainer into a jar and store in the fridge. Eat the pieces of caramel left behind in the strainer.
 

Bourbon

This infused bourbon combines the tastes and scents of the moment. Caramelised simple syrup is combined with grated apple and the whole given a note of smokiness with the addition of a teaspoon or so of Lapsang Souchong tea.

3 apples
360ml caramelised simple syrup
480ml bourbon
2 cinnamon sticks
2 tsp lapsang souchong

1 Grate the apples into a large, sterilised, sealable jar and pour in the syrup.

2 Muddle together and then add all the other ingredients and mix well. Leave to infuse for five days.

3 After five days, strain through a muslin into another sterilised, sealable jar. Leave to drip through the muslin for a few hours rather than squeezing it, for a clearer result.

4 You can drink immediately, or seal and store somewhere cool and dark for up to a year. 

Read more:

From the October issue

Seed to Stove recipes

Warming drinks

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