Speckled Cake and Pandemia

Bake cake. Feel better.

My husband came in from a dog walk this past Sunday. It was dreary and rainy all day. He stepped into the front hallway, and as the dog shook himself dry all over the white-painted walls, my husband looked at me beleagueredly and asked: “Is today the 45th day of February? “

While I love the snow more than most people, I woke up on March 1 as if I’d received intravenous caffeine overnight. I mopped the first floor. I Swiffered a collection of dog and cat fur large enough that I considered felting a sweater from it. Laundry that had sat in piles for longer than I will ever admit in public, got folded and put away. Surfaces with piles that may or may not have contained unsent Christmas cards in them got straightened up. “A place for everything and everything in its place,” I could hear my mother say.

[This was not the first time I’d heard my mother’s voice haunting me with these words, just the first time I’d reacted to it.]

A long, snow-filled winter and the realization that it’s been ONE ENTIRE YEAR of “pandemia,” it’s no wonder I’m breaking out in mental hives. As if somehow all my scrubbing and tidying could clear away the damn spots that have been lockdown.

Cooking has reflected my situation. One of my children has but to twitch their eyebrow slightly and I’m suggesting some food from Chengdu 1 might be the answer to dinner and the existential fears that come with a Tuesday. Cheesy pizza pinwheels, tinged orange with pepperoni oil, spied on Il Tavolino’s Insta, are in order although the pizzeria is a 25-minute drive away. (You can read my review of Il Tavolino along with other pizza favorites in NJMonthly’s Best Pizza issue.)  I’ve moved beyond the early parenting moments where I’d make pancakes for dinner because cultivated insouciance made me feel all Brooklyn Mom and now just briefly look up from season 5 of “Shameless”  to suggest there’s cereal if they don’t want leftover spaghetti.

But for you! For you I will always bake -- for you, and my second stomach, which is there just for cake.

St. David’s Day is March 1 and celebrates Wales’ patron saint, so I baked ‘bara brith,’ a favorite Welsh tea cake of mine ‘Bara brith’ means ‘speckled bread,’ as the dense, rich bread is filled with tea-soaked raisins.

There was a sweet Welshman who worked at Selwyn College when I was there named Taffy who proudly presented me with a slice of his wife’s bara brith on St. David’s Day in the hopes of educating an American to the better things in life, ie, all things Welsh. I’ve loved it since.

The recipe below is adapted from a BBC Good Food recipe, because I didn’t have the good sense at 19 to ask Taffy for his wife’s recipe.

Bara Brith

Please note you must soak the fruit for 8 hours before making the cake

14 ounces/2 ½ cups dried fruit (Any combination of raisins, currants or dried cranberries)

12 ounces/1 ½ cups brewed, strong black tea

4 ounces/1 stick butter

2 tablespoons orange marmalade or apricot jam

2 large eggs

10 ounces/2 1/3 cups whole wheat flour

6 ounces/1 1/3 cups  all-purpose white flour *

2 tablespoons baking powder

1 ½ teaspoons salt

6 ounces/ 3/4 cup light brown sugar

1 generous teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 generous teaspoon ground ginger

½ cup milk/generous 4 ounces, plus more as needed.

Cinnamon sugar for topping

How to:

1.     In a small bowl or measuring cup, pour the tea over the dried fruit. Cover and let sit for at least 8 hours until the fruits are plump.

2.     When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and grease a loaf tin with butter or spray with a product like Baker’s Joy.

3.     In a small saucepan, melt the butter and marmalade/jam over low heat. Set aside to cool slightly.

4.     While the butter is cooling, in a large bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, salt, brown sugar, cinnamon and ginger.

5.     Pour the melted butter/marmalade over the flour mixture. Add the eggs and milk and stir until blended. If the mixture appears dry, add milk 2 tablespoons at a time until you achieve a soft batter. The batter is ready when it amiably glops off of the spoon.

2.     Scrape the batter into the prepared tin, smooth the top and then generously sprinkle cinnamon-sugar over the batter. This is no place to skimp. You will be happy you have the sugary crusted top later.

3.     Bake for 60 to 75 minutes. The cake is ready when a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

4.     Let the cake cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then turn it onto a cooling rack.

5.     It’s best served warm with cold butter. It’s delicious toasted, too. No surprise there.

*You need one pound of flour in total. I opted for my whole wheat than white for flavor. Use any combination you see fit. Please note that you may have to add more milk depending on which flours you use.