Bara Brith Biscuits

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Bara Brith biscuits – A crunchy spiced shortbread biscuit with orange zest and Twinings tea-infused raisins.

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I love tea. I think if there were one drink in the world I’d struggle to give up it’s tea as it is just so comforting. I was therefore very excited when I was invited by one of my absolute favourite tea companies, Twinings, to create two recipes using their premium teas.

My first creation is these Bara Brith Biscuits, made using Twinings English Strong Breakfast Tea and the second (coming next week) will feature their delicious Spicy Chai Tea. I’m not going to tell you what it is yet, you’ll just have to make sure you check back next week to find out 🙂

As soon as I started thinking about baking with tea my mind immediately jumped to Bara Brith, with it’s spices and tea-soaked fruit. I realised that I’ve now been living in Wales for over 3 years and not yet shared a Welsh inspired recipe on here so I thought it was about time.

As it turned out, the longer I worked on the recipe the more un-Welsh inspired it became, with the use of English Tea and a Scottish shortbread biscuit. Never mind though, because they taste really good and surely that’s the most important thing. I’ll just have to make some Welsh cakes to share here soon instead 🙂

As with Bara Brith, the raisins in this recipe are soaked in tea giving them a lovely subtle tea flavour. As the flavour is quite subtle it needs a high quality, strong tea to work, so this Twinings English Strong Breakfast tea is perfect. A weaker blend would simply get lost in amongst the orange zest and spices.

As well as adding flavour, soaking the raisins in tea also helps stop them burning while the biscuits cook so they stay soft and juicy rather than going hard and a little bitter in the oven.

I’ve always been a fan of Twinings teas as they’re such great quality and have such a lovely range of flavours, but until recently I had absolutely no idea of the time and effort that goes into each blend. They have 9 Master Blenders who travel the world buying, blending and checking the quality of all the tea, drinking around 600 cups every day.

Now I drink a lot of tea but even to me that sounds like a lot! The Master Blenders train for 7 years (longer than it takes to become a doctor!), spending at least 3 months in a tea growing region and are the only people to know the recipes of the Twinings tea. No wonder their tea tastes so good…

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Bara Brith Biscuits

Bara Brith biscuits - A crunchy spiced shortbread biscuit with orange zest and Twinings tea-infused raisins.

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Active Time: 25 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes minutes

Total Time: 40 minutes minutes

Servings: 20 large (7cm) biscuits

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INGREDIENTS

• 100 g softened butter
• 50 g light brown sugar
• 150 g plain flour
• 50 g raisins
• 200 ml boiling water
• 3 Twinings English Strong Breakfast Teabags
• ½ orange - zest only
• 2 tsp mixed spice
• Small pinch of salt
• A little milk and light brown sugar to glaze the biscuits

INSTRUCTIONS

• Pre-heat your oven to 180ºC/160ºC fan.
• Put 200ml of boiling water into a jug or bowl and add the Twinings teabags. Brew for a few minutes, remove the teabags and add the raisins (50g). Leave the raisins to absorb the tea while you prepare the biscuits.
• Cream together the butter (100g) and light brown sugar (50g) until light and fluffy.
• Sift in the plain flour (150g), mixed spice (2 tsp) and salt (a really small pinch), and add the orange zest (½ orange). Mix together until combined – You don’t want to work the mixture too hard, if you have an electric mixer then use a low to medium setting for about 1 minute. If you are using your hands then squeeze the mixture together before kneading lightly until you have a soft dough.
• Drain the raisins and add them to the dough. Use your hands to knead them into the dough until evenly distributed.
• Roll out the dough to about the depth of a £1 coin and use a biscuit cutter to cut out the biscuits. Place them onto a baking sheet lined with greaseproof paper or a non-stick baking sheet.
• Brush each biscuit with a little milk and then sprinkle over a little light brown sugar.
• Cook the biscuits for 15-18 minutes until golden and crisp.
• Once cooked remove them from the oven, let them cool on a tray for a few minutes before placing them onto a wire rack to cool completely.
• Enjoy with a cup of tea 🙂

NOTES

Makes 20 large (7cm) biscuits or 30 small (4.5cm) biscuits.

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NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION

Serving: 1large biscuit | Calories: 82kcal | Carbohydrates: 9.9g | Protein: 0.8g | Fat: 4.2g | Saturated Fat: 2.6g | Fiber: 0.3g | Sugar: 4.6g

Any nutritional information provided is the estimated nutritional information per serving. Please refer to my guide to Charlotte’s Lively Kitchen nutritional information if you would like to learn more about how this is calculated.

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Course: Biscuits

Cuisine: British

Keyword: Coffee Morning, Easter Biscuit

Author: Charlotte Oates