Recipe: fruit bread

I take absolutely no credit for this one whatsoever in that it came to me from Thrifty Lesley, via Pat Parker, in the 'Feed yourself for a pound a day' page on Facebook.  If you want to be more frugal with your cooking, eating and shopping, that is the page for you.  It's brilliant.
And Lesley has a great web site which I have mentioned before in this blog.  http://www.thriftylesley.com/  Ditto as far as brilliant frugal ideas is concerned.

I whole-heartedly recommend both places to you.

I made this.  It is a proper bread, not a cakey or puddingy version, substantial and wholesome.  It is truly delicious and, when it dries a bit, as bread is wont to do, it will toast like a dream.  The list of ingredients looks long but it isn't really, it is all stuff you will have in, if you bake.  If you don't - go on, try it!  It can be addictive.

Here is the recipe.  I've given half amounts that work perfectly with a 1 lb loaf tin.  Choose your ingredients wisely and it is a frugal treat.

Ingredients:
200g strong white flour
1 tsp sugar
1.5 tbsp oil (veg or sunflower - or you can use 37g butter)
half teaspoon salt
1.5 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp allspice
1 medium egg
50 ml milk
50 ml water
half tsp dried yeast (the kind for for bread makers)
70g mixed dried fruit.  I used some cranberries that were drying up and some value mixed fruit.  Any dried fruit would do and you can also vary the spices you use.  I am wondering about garam masala . . .

The Thermomix method

Put all the ingredients apart from the dried fruit into the bowl.  I added flour first, then the rest.

Knead for 10 mins.  Add the dried fruit and reverse mix on 3 for a short time until the fruit is evenly dispersed.

OR:

Place all ingredients into a bowl, mix well and knead on a floured surface for ten minutes or so.

Shape by hand into a loaf shape and place in a 1 lb loaf tin.  Cover with cling film.   It may seem quite heavy and I found it needs longer than the usual time to rise.  Give it all the time it needs.  If you are short of time or make it overnight, pop it in the fridge.  Just go with the flow . . . talk nicely to it!

Preheat the oven to 230C.  As soon as the loaf goes in, reduce the heat to 180C.  It takes about 30 to 35 minutes to bake.

So, so delish!