Golden, warm Irish Tea Cake is an easy dessert to serve with your St. Patrick’s Day Corned Beef and Cabbage. It’s also a homey, delicious Irish baking recipe that’s also perfect any time of year.
What is Irish Tea Cake?
Irish Tea Cake is not the same thing as making Irish Soda Bread then adding a handful of raisins. I have to say this because there are some purists out there who have conniption fits about Irish Soda Bread recipes involving more than four ingredients.
It’s not Irish Soda Bread
They’re not altogether wrong, mind you. Traditional Irish Soda Bread uses only flour, salt, baking soda, and buttermilk. That’s it. No sugar, no butter, and certainly no raisins. As explained by the Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread (yes, there is such a thing), anything else is “tea cake.”
And so, this recipe is for Irish Tea Cake and not Irish Soda Bread with Raisins, though you’re welcome to call it whatever you like. One thing you’re bound to call it is your new favorite Irish baked goods for St. Patrick’s Day, because it’s so simple to make and delicious with a hot cup of tea.
Irish Tea Cake Recipe Steps
Rub Cold Butter into Dry Ingredients
To make Irish Tea Cake, combine the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Next, add the cubes of very cold butter and, using your fingertips, rub them into the flour mixture until it resembles a coarse meal. This step leads to a “shorter” bread which minimizes the breakdown of gluten, so you wind up with a more tender result.
You might need to fish around in there a few times to ensure there are no more large chunks of butter. Shaking the bowl a bit also helps.
Pour Buttermilk into the Well
Once the butter is completely rubbed in, make a well in the center of the dry mixture. Quickly pour the buttermilk into the center of this well and stir until the ingredients are just combined. Don’t use beaters or a stand mixer or you’ll over-stir and end up with a tough cake at the end.
Add Raisins and Bake
Sprinkle the raisins in during the final few strokes and stir just until they’re mixed into the batter. Doesn’t it look like chocolate chip cookie dough? It has about the same consistency, too, so don’t expect it to flow as a cake batter would.
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Spoon the dough into a well-greased cake pan, pushing it to the edges with your spoon then sprinkle on the remaining sugar. Again, try not to overhandle the dough or it’ll get tough. Since this is a rustic-style Irish baking recipe, you want it to have a craggy top to catch butter when you serve it. Oh, man, it is so good with butter!
Bake for roughly 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. It’ll develop a gorgeous golden brown top while it cooks and your kitchen will smell amazing!
Let it Cool a Bit After Baking
Once it’s ready, remove the bread from the oven and let it cool in the pan for 10 minutes before transferring it to a wire rack. I let it cool for another 15 minutes longer while I heated the kettle to make tea. After that, we couldn’t wait one more minute to dig in.
Storing Irish Tea Cake
Irish Tea Cake keeps well up to 3 days if stored in an air-tight container at room temperature. If you want to freeze this Irish Tea Cake, let it fully cool and wrap it well in cling wrap followed by two layers of aluminum foil. Defrost fully before serving.
Irish Tea Cake
Inspired by Irish Soda Bread, this sweeter version is studded throughout with raisins and sprinkled with sugar. It’s delicious on its own or slathered with good Irish butter.
Preheat oven to 375°F / 190°C and position a rack in the center of the oven.Grease an 8-inch cake pan well.
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, 4 tablespoons of the sugar, and all of the baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Add butter to the bowl and, using your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs.
Make a well in the center of the dry mixture.Quickly pour the cold buttermilk into the well and stir just to combine.Add in raisins during the final few strokes.
Spoon the dough into the prepared cake pan and use the spoon to bring it to the sides. Do not flatten or smooth the top of the dough — you want it to remain craggy.Sprinkle the dough with the remaining tablespoon of sugar.
Bake at 375°F / 190°C for 40 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.Cool in pan for 10 minutes then transfer to a wire rack.
Notes
Storage: Keeps well up to 3 days if stored in an air-tight container at room temperature. If you want to freeze Irish Tea Cake, let it fully cool and wrap it well in cling wrap followed by two layers of aluminum foil. Defrost on the counter before serving.
What do you think? Are you ready to give my Irish Tea Cake Recipe a try?
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Made your Irish Tea Cake recipe but the texture is dry. Why is this as I followed your directions exactly. This should be soft and dense in the inside? And crunchy hard on the outside?
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It’s a tea cake, not soda bread, so it shouldn’t be crunchy on the outside. If that’s what you were aiming for, then my guess is you cooked it too long which would result in a dry texture.
Love this! Just had it for tea..with butter and marmalade. Absolutely perfect. So quick and easy to make, followed directions as written. Thank you so much!
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I’m so glad you liked it, Peggy. It’s a favorite here, too. 🙂
Thanks for the recipe. Coniption fit! Ha ha. Happens to be one of my own personal sayings. Delighted you had the metric conversion. Waterford, Ireland 🇮🇪
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I just made this and it is delicious!
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I’m so glad you liked it, Lynda!
Can I use any dried fruit?
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I haven’t tried a lot of different dried fruits but can’t think of why you couldn’t try some. Let me know which ones work out for you!
Can I add pecans or walnuts along with raisin s?
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I don’t see why not! They sound like yummy additions. Maybe just a handful, though, so you don’t need to adjust the other ingredients.
This is delicious! It is just sweet enough and has a nice dense, but not heavy, texture! I had to add a few extra splashes of buttermilk to get my dough/batter to come together. It was easy to make and I will make it again!
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I’m so glad you liked it!
Totally trying this! Timing is perfect. I am totally on an Irish Breakfast tea kick, AND I have fresh buttermilk in my fridge right now. Thanks for the recipe, for your hilarious newsletter yesterday (3/6/17), and for your amazing blog. The quality of your content, and your personality, humor, and professionalism bring me back every week. I’m a fan, Katie B!
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Teacakes are often larger and flatter with a slightly harder consistency, meaning they can be enjoyed with a range of condiments, including jams and marmalades. A Hot Cross Bun is softer, with more spices baked in, so is often just enjoyed with butter.
England. In most of England, a teacake is a light, sweet, yeast-based bun containing dried fruits, most usually currants, sultanas or peel. It is typically split, toasted, buttered, and served with tea. It is flat and circular, with a smooth brown upper surface and a somewhat lighter underside.
Barry's Tea is the most popular tea in Ireland, and we sipped many a pot of this golden blend. I like mine with raw sugar and a touch of milk. My travel companion drinks his plain. It was always served with two bags of tea inside a metal teapot, steeped for 3-5 minutes, and then teabags removed.
Irish Breakfast tea emphasizes the use of Assam and has a more robust and intense flavor than English breakfast. Like their whiskey, the Irish enjoy their tea extra strong. The addition of Assam gives the tea a reddish hue, and it exhibits a malty flavor.
Probably the best known Irish Halloween tradition is the making of Barnbrack. This is a type of fruit cake which is eaten during Halloween. The tradition is that there is a ring, a coin and a piece of cloth baked in the cake.
These Irish delicacies often are filled with spices and fruits. Irish Whiskey can be used to make these fine deserts as well. These cakes take on twist on a basic chocolate cake. They include marzipan frosting and items of holiday decor of course, such as mistletoe!
No one knows for certain when the tradition began, but in 16th century England, bakers were limited by law to occasions when these special doughs could be made. Good Friday was one; 'cross buns' marked this holy day towards the end of the Lenten fast.
Compressed tea, called tea bricks, tea cakes or tea lumps, and tea nuggets according to the shape and size, are blocks of whole or finely ground black tea, green tea, or post-fermented tea leaves that have been packed in molds and pressed into block form.
Hot cross buns go back as far as the 12th century. Supposedly, an Anglican monk baked the bun and marked them with a cross as a representation for Good Friday. These became popular over the years and are now popular to eat around Easter weekend.
Outside the South, the words “tea cake” mean any cake served with tea. But to Southerners, tea cakes are more than that. They are the nostalgic cookies—crispy and golden around the edges, soft and cake-like inside—that are perfect for tea, or just about anything else you choose to drink.
Fairy cakes are individual sponge cakes baked in paper cases. They are the same as cup cakes really, and that's what they're mostly called this side of the pond these days, but we don't use cup measures.
Fun Facts Cup Cakes : In Britain cupcakes are called fairy cakes. Fairy cakes use a lighter glacé icing compared to the butter cream used by American bakers. They also are traditionally made with a lighter sponge cake as opposed to the thicker butter cakes used in our cupcakes.
First, put a little bit of hot water in to your teapot and swirl it around to warm the pot. Then pop your tea bag or tea leaves into the pot – either works just don't skimp on the volume – then pour in the water and let it steep. Use a tea cozy to keep your tea warm while it steeps. Functional and fabulous!
It's always served with milk and sugar. Most places put these on the side, but it's not uncommon to be served a cup of tea with milk and sugar already mixed in.
Irish breakfast tea is a blend of several black teas, most often a combination of Assam teas and Ceylon teas. Irish tea brands, notably Barry's, Bewley's, Lyons and Robert Roberts in the Republic and Nambarrie's and Thompson's Punjana in Northern Ireland are heavily weighted towards Assam.
Some people pour milk into their cup before they add the tea, while others do the reverse, and some take no milk at all. Still others prefer a squeeze of lemon, some sugar, or both.
Introduction: My name is Dan Stracke, I am a homely, gleaming, glamorous, inquisitive, homely, gorgeous, light person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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