Author's cake dipped in tea? Au contraire (6)
I believe the answer is:
buchan
'author's' is the definition.
(John Buchan, scottish author and polymath)
'cake dipped in tea? au contraire' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'tea?' could be 'cha' (cha is a type of tea) and 'cha' is found within the answer.
'cake' could be 'bun' (bun is a type of cake) and 'bun' is present in the remaining letters.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for buchan that I've seen before include "Author of The Thirty-Nine Steps" , "John, Scottish writer" , "Author of 'Greenmantle'" , "Concluding passage" .)