Polydish city guide
Best Tea loaf in London
“Fruit steeped in cold tea overnight, then baked without fat — a loaf that tastes better as it ages.”
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What the real thing tastes like
A tea loaf or tea bread is an English bread, made with dried fruit and traditionally served sliced and spread with butter. It is seen as a very traditional cake and the tea loaf is available in cafes and other establishments that serve traditional afternoon tea. It is particularly associated with Yorkshire. In the making of tea loaves, the fruit (usually currants and sultanas) is soaked in initially hot tea to plump it before mixing it into the batter. The fruit is left in the tea for several hours, or overnight, and so is mainly steeped in cold tea. The tea used to make the cake was traditionally black tea, but Earl Grey or other teas can also be used. Eggs are beaten into the tea/fruit mixture to bind the ingredients together and then the flour, sugar and any ground spices (such as mixed spice or cinnamon alone) are added. Yeast used to be used as the raising agent but self-raising flour is specified in modern recipes. Although currants and sultanas are traditional fruits, others ca
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A tea loaf is the English answer to fruit bread that actually improves as it sits — dried currants and sultanas drink deep in steeped tea for hours or overnight, plumping with moisture before they're beaten into a batter with eggs, flour, and warm spices. What makes it sing is what it deliberately leaves out: fat. That absence is no accident. It's what lets this traditional Yorkshire loaf keep for days, its flavour deepening like a secret over time, sliced thick and spread with butter at afternoon tea.
Order it here when it has
- flavour improves with age
- extended shelf life
- traditional afternoon tea staple
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