The romantic associations of tea-bread

I'm normally a staunch member of the 'Down with Raisins' fraternity, but there is one exception. Tea bread, which is really cake made with raisins soaked in tea, somehow persuades me it is acceptable. Perhaps this is something to do with having been introduced to it by a very close friend when a teenager - not a boyfriend (always so much less romantic than the imagination), but a boy nevertheless.

For years I carried his recipe for tea bread, written in his characteristically spiky handwriting, in my wallet. It was very slightly more complex than the one I use now, but came out very well too.

My current recipe has the beauty of extreme simplicity.

2 mugs dried fruit
1 mug brown sugar
1 mug hot black tea
1 egg
1 mug self-raising flour.

Soak the fruit and sugar overnight in the tea, mix in the egg and flour, pour into a greased and lined loaf tin and bake at 150 C, gas mark 2, for an hour and a half.

Unable to leave well alone, I add some pinches of spice - cinnamon and clove, even a pinch of star anise I ground earlier - but this is entirely optional.

The important thing is to serve it in thickly buttered slices. Yum!