Raisin Loaf

I was really bored yesterday, as I usually am on Sundays, and so decided the best thing to do to help pass some time would be to bake!  I had a couple of things in mind that I wanted to make, one of which being a raisin loaf, which I had fallen in love with when I had some at Christmas! 

I used 250g of raisins and found this to be the right amount for me but you can always use more or less depending on your personal preference.  You can also experiment using different combinations of dried fruits. 

At first, the butter/sugar mixture looks really stiff, and adding the egg/flour makes it turn into more of a crumbly cookie dough like mixture, but then it all comes together when you add the fruit in.

The loaf is really moist and has a lovely sweet after taste from the orange juice.  It is pretty crumbly though so a sharp knife is needed to be able to cut the loaf cleanly.

Ingredients:

250g raisins

225ml hot water

juice 1 orange (about 75ml) plus zest

50g butter

100g light brown sugar

1 egg

225g self-raising flour

Method:

- place the dried fruits in a bowl and pour over the hot water, orange juice and zest

- cover with cling film, then leave for at least 4 hours or better still overnight.

- heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4 and grease and line a loaf tin

- beat together the butter and sugar until creamy, then beat in the egg followed by the flour

- carefully stir through the fruit mixture

- spoon the mixture into the tin, then smooth over the surface with the back of a spoon

- bake for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean

- leave to cool in the tin, then turn out, cut into slices and serve