Yummy Tea Loaf

Greedy Nan emailed me today to say that she had received her giveaway prize! And, thankfully ... she loved it!

I thought I would do something a little different ... and sent her a tea loaf! Here is the recipe, it is so nice and low fat too (means you can eat more of it!!).

250g soft brown sugar

175g sultanas

50g chopped mixed peel

300ml cold strong tea (I used Yorkshire Tea)

1 egg, beaten

300g S.R flour

1. Mix together the sugar, sultanas, mixed peel and cold tea. Leave to soak for 6 hours, or overnight.

2. When you are ready to get baking - pre heat your oven to 160degrees C (gas mark 3) and line a loaf tin with greaseproof paper.

3. Stir the egg and flour into the fruit mixture and beat thoroughly then pour it into the loaf tin and smooth the surface.

4. Bake for 1 hour 15 minutes

Bettys Cafe Tea Rooms, York

Mr Plum and I recently spent 5 days in Yorkshire, house and Nanna sitting, while the in-laws were on holiday in Devon.

There are certain things that we must do while up North, these include:

1.  Visiting relatives

2.  Visiting friends

3.  Go to York and visit Bettys!!!!

York is a beautiful city - full of lovely little streets and quaint shops.  I lived there for 18 months (1999-2001) and have done lots of the tourist stuff (Jorvik, Castle Museum, the York Dungeon, Shambles etc!) .... 

Whenever we get to go back to York now, we head straight for Bettys Tea Shop! This is the most amazing place - and we never grow tired of a piece of tea loaf, stem ginger cake, pikelets, pot of tea ... 

We had found out that by the Ladies there is a mirror. During the Second World War, Canadian Airmen who were stationed outside York would visit Bettys Bar regularly - so regular in fact, that when the MOD wrote to Bettys threatening to requisition the building for the war effort - Bettys wrote back and said that there was no way the MOD could requisition the building as they were currently serving 20,000 meals a week - mostly to the airmen!  Anyway, on this mirror - the airmen have all signed their names ... a cursory glance at the mirror, and you would think that it was just graffiti ... until you look at the dates on the glass (1941).  The most poignant thing about this is that Mr Plum's Nanna was in the Land Army and based outside York ... she used to go to dances at Bettys with her Canadian Airman ......

I would recommend a visit to Bettys - don't be put off by the long queue ... it is well worth the wait! Have a look at the mirror - it is downstairs to the right of the ladies toilet!

The Innocent Village Fete

Me and Mr Plum went to the Innocent Fete in Regents Park on Sunday.  Having grown up in a small village where the yearly fete was one of the highlights of the social calendar, I thought that an afternoon of morris dancing, welly wanging and tea and cakes would be the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon in August.

I wasn't disappointed! It was great!  Okay ... so the rain was a bit annoying, and I tried my hardest to ignore the commercial aspect of the whole day ... I would have liked to have seen more bands but we could only just squeeze ourselves into the "Hay Barn" to watch the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain (lots of people were just using the tent as shelter and were just sitting around chatting and missing the music!)

It was nice to get some lovely veggie food (not too overpriced, considering...), wander around the crafty stalls (lots of ideas ... please see future posts!), buy some plants, get ideas for living more ecologically ... oh, and have free tea and cakes at the Yorkshire Tea tent!  That was Mr Plum's favourite bit! 

I will definitely be going back next year!!