Tea Brack (aka Irish Freckle Bread)

First time making this Tea Brack recipe (http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/tea-brack-recipe)  with lots of dried fruit, it is similar to common sweet breads (e.g., banana bread). The big difference is the Irish Style Wholemeal flour. A copy of my review of this recipe appears below.

Baked in my 12" Tea Loaf Pan

Challenging to turn out of the pan without breaking up.

The dried fruit distributed evenly throughout; along with the wholemeal flour this combination provides the firm structure I prefer. 

With encouragement from the KA chat line, I baked Tea Brack in my KA Tea Loaf Pan (Item 5785); it turned out well. I greased the pan with canola oil and filled it to about 1 inch from the top; it rose in a nice rounding arc about 1/8 inch above the pan rim. Placed the loaf pan on the oven rack in the bottom 1/3 of the oven, set oven temperature to 325 and timer for 40 minutes. It was at this point, I realized I’d forgotten to add the sparkling white sugar:) 

Recipe calls for raisons and currants but lacking the latter, I used 213g raisons. Also used 163g chopped prunes and 116g chopped dates; recipe calls for 142g dates but I ran out so used 26g of dried cherries to make up the difference. For the brew, I used 227g Korean green tea given to me by a friend. All other ingredients followed the recipe.

Cake tester had wet batter at 40 minutes; color was fine and it wasn’t turning too dark but I tented with foil just in case and baked for another 10 minutes. At 50 minutes the cake tester came out clean on one end of the loaf but wet on the other. Interestingly, each time I inserted the cake tester, the loaf center deflated somewhat (about 1/4 inch) and never fully bounced back, leaving a slight depression down the center (lengthwise) of the loaf. 

At 55 minutes, the cake tester was still a bit wet, but at 60 it came out clean in 2 places so I removed it from the oven and let it cool on a rack for 5 minutes. I was nervous about whether it would turn out of the pan without breaking up; after it cooled in the pan for 5 minutes I optimistically turned the pan over onto a rack but nothing came out:). I then used a stainless steel dough cutter to carefully loosen the brack from the sides of the pan; it then turned out onto the rack without breaking! It looked great, even with the slight depression down the center line. 

After 1.5 hours cooling on the rack I cut into the loaf - delicious! The loaf actually stuck to the rack a bit but not enough to break up when I moved it to a cutting board. The distribution of fruit was even and plentiful; providing a moist, sweet bread with fruit in every bite. Didn’t miss the sparkling sugar topping:) The density of fruit gives the loaf a firm structure which I really like.

I love the loaf size of KA’s tea loaf pan but for this recipe I worried too much about removing the product without breaking up so next time think I’ll try baking in the small paper loaf pans so I can gift the final product; thanks KA!