This rather wonderful sugar free chocolate, cranberry and walnut tea bread started life as an extremely simple ordinary bread loaf. This sugar free chocolate variation has been on my HUGE list of things to try for a while, and one sleepless night, I mixed it up and baked it, along with some scotch eggs. Couldn’t have any of it other than a teensiest bit because of the cocoa in it. Not only would it keep me awake even longer, I would probably get a migraine. But my husband loves chocolate and walnuts and he loved this, having a slice for breakfast.
The Verdict
The loaf had a beautiful crumb, a great crust, sliced well and tasted wonderful. It’s great to have a sugar free chocolate treat for my husband without any flipping palm oil either, which seems to be in everything. He had some plain, and some with butter on.
He hasn’t tried it toasted yet, but what’s the betting that’s good too. Something else I’d like to try is to pan fry it as a toasted sandwich in some butter and then fill it with value cream cheese and sliced strawberries, with or without maple syrup
The Variations
This would be equally good with the cranberries and walnuts, but leaving out the cocoa. Add a little sugar if you want some, I would try 50g first.
The cranberries and walnuts are the expensive things here. If you want to keep the cost to the minimum, just leave them out to bring the cost of your tea bread down to just 36p and 2p per slice. Or add the much more inexpensive peanut and raisins.
Any fruit and nuts would work well, so raisin and peanut; brazil nut and dried apricot; almond and currants.
Ingredients
Serves 4
- 420 g flour value, self raising, 45p/1.5kg, 13p
- 2 tsps baking powder 5p
- ½ tsp salt
- 25 g cocoa 250g/ £1.39, 14p
- 50 g cranberries dried, £1/100g, 50p
- 40 g walnuts chopped, £1.09/100g, 44p
- 420 ml water sparkling, 17p/2 litres, 4p
Instructions
- Sieve the flour, cocoa, baking powder, salt together. Make sure they are well mixed.
- Mix in the fruit and nuts.
- Grease a 2lb loaf tin thoroughly.
- Add the sparkling water to the flour mix and mix just enough to incorporate, like a muffin. The water will fizz enthusiastically.
- Tip the mix into the prepared tin and leave on one side for half an hour. Don’t nudge or knock the tin in this time, it will rise a bit.
- Click here to start a 30 minute timer
- After 20 minutes, heat the oven to 180C fan, 200C conventional, 400F, gas mark 6.
- When the half hour is up, gently put the bread in the oven and bake for 40 minutes.
- Click here to start a 40 minute timer
- Tip out of the tin and put back in the oven for a further 20 minutes.
- Click here to start a 20 minute timer
- Cool on a wire rack.
- Leave until completely cold, then slice. Freeze any not eaten on the same day to keep it fresh.
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