Tea cakes...revisited

I first made Paul Hollywood's tea cakes for Easter. I loved that the dough was easy to make and wonderful to handle and have been wanting to make it again. The unfortunate thing is the mixed peel ingredient is pretty hard to find in Hawai'i when it's not Christmas. I did have an interesting possible substitute though.


They are just as their name indicates; sweet little cubes of apple and cinnamon with a soft chew. The flavor and smell made Chris and I think of Tomoe Ame, those sugary Japanese candies wrapped in edible rice paper. The texture was much softer though. Eric didn't think so. Ah, what does he know.


And to make things more interesting, there's also orange...


And raspberry!


Since I am substituting for mixed peel, I had to use orange. And the apple and cinnamon clearly wanted to be included so I went half and half with the usual measure of sultanas, AKA golden raisins.


The jammy bits and golden raisins were added to the nicely risen dough.


I did a MUCH better job of evenly portioning the dough than the first time!


I also finally got pastry brushes! The egg washing was so much easier.


After a second rise, the cakes went into the oven for about 15 minutes at 400F.


Unlike the mixed peel, the jammy bits melted in places. When the cakes were fresh out of the oven, the melted places were small pools of sweet juice. It was delicious but it did make the bread a bit heavier; still a great crumb though. Once the cakes cooled, the pools of sweet juice had solidified but it was still mighty tasty! I think I would use slightly less of the jammy bits the next time!



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