Every district of Yorkshire seems to have their own version of spice bread, and here’s one, originally recorded in the 1930s, from the village of Ellerbeck in North Yorkshire on the eastern edge of the Cleveland Hills.
Ingredients
- 1 dessertspoon dried yeast
- 200ml/7fl oz milk, hand hot
- 11 oz (325g) strong white bread flour
- Half a teaspoon of salt
- 6 oz (170g) Demerara sugar
- 1 teaspoon mixed sweet spice
- 4 oz (113g) butter
- 4 oz (113g) currants
- 2 oz (55g) sultanas
- 1 oz (28g) mixed candied peel
- 1 egg, beaten
Method
- Whisk the dried yeast into half (100ml) the hand-hot milk with a pinch of sugar and set aside until it is frothy
- Mix the flour, salt, sugar and spice and lightly rub in the butter until it well distributed
- Make a well in the middle and pour in the yeast mixture. Bring together the flour from the sides of the basin into the mix and leave it to work for 20 minutes
- Work it to a dough, adding more of the milk as necessary. Knead the dough well.
- Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover it with a damp tea-cloth and leave it in a warm place for a hour or so. The mixture will rise, but will not double in size.
- Knock back the dough and knead in the fruit, peel and beaten egg
- Put it into a greased loan tin, cover it with the damp cloth, and allow it to rise in a warm place for an hour (it won’t rise that much)
- Bake it in a pre-heated moderate oven at 180c/350F/gas mark 4 for 1 hour and 20 minutes
- Test it with a skewer. If there is any dough sticking to the skewer, bake it a little longer until the skewer comes out clean
- Cool, slice it, and spread with butter. Delicious!
Source: Laura Mason, Farmhouse Cookery (2005) p. 155. Published by The National Trust.
