Winter Spiced Tea Cakes | Bake Off Bake Along

So Bread week was a tense one in the tent. I had no clue what the cottage loaf was and the final bread challenge was just a little bit out of my league, especially when Bread week is my most feared out of the whole Bake Off Bake Along.

Last years bread week was a flop, with a failed brioche that didn’t really rise as well as I hoped. Bread isn’t my favourite to make, mainly because I like instant results you get with cake or cookies. But it is my favourite to eat and I cannot resist warm bread. 

However... I think I’m final learning to love making bread.

I was quite sad to see Flo go this week as she was a strong favourite of mine, and that watermelon cake was just insane too. There seems to have been a shift in the tent though, with some of the weaker bakers rising up the ranks this week. 

This week I opted for tea cakes, because I’ve never made them before and my Grandma loves them. So bonus granddaughter points for dropping some of these in to her this week.

Did anyone else feel like none of the bakers added enough dried fruit to their tea cakes? I'm someone that loves any sort of scone, tea cake or hot cross bun jam packed full of fruit, then of course toasted and slathered in butter. So I did make it my mission to add more fruit into these, but I still don't feel like it was enough. 

Trying to choose a flavour for these was tricky though because I’ve done chocolate chunks in bread before and they melt during proving, making them really messy to handle. So instead, I used all my Christmas spices and dried cranberries. 

Because did you know it’s less than 100 days until Christmas?

I used half mixed fruit and half cranberries and they gave the tea cakes a perfect sweet kick. I kind of wish I had spiced the tea cakes even more than I had. 1 and ½ tsp just didn’t feel enough, but it didn’t give the kitchen a lovely festive scent. Better than any candle.

You can find the recipe here and the only changes made were 1 tsp of mixed spice and ½ tsp of cinnamon, and switching out 75g of dried fruit for 50g chopped, dried cranberries and 50g dried mixed fruit. (I would definitely recommend upping the spice quantity though even more)

All in all, toasted tea cakes are delicious but I'd still take a hot cross bun over them any day. 

What did you think of Bread week?