Can you help?

     Susan, in her comment on last week's soda bread post, asks if I have a good recipe for Barm Brack. The answer is, unfortunately, no, but a quick search on the web has provided this version (on a site relating to Jane Austen !), while this one looks good, though it doesn't use tea to soak the dried fruit, and then there's this from an Irish blog.

     But can Cornflower readers come up with something even better? If you can provide a tried and tested recipe - or a link or reference to one - please let us know, then I'll have a go at making it too and post the results.

    (By the way, Susan, I tried to reply to your comment directly by email but my response was bounced back).

Comments

[Susan]

Thanks Cornflower, for your quick response. I copied down the recipes you suggest. I'm totally confused about what the real recipe is. The first 3 I found, before I wrote to you, had no milk or butter or yeast. If I make them with milk and butter it will change the whole sense of it, and make it more like a cake, whereas the old recipe seems to be a tea and sultana flavoured bread cake. ie not so rich as a normal cake. The friend I'd like to cook it for was born in the 1940s, so if anyone has any idea what these cakes were like back then, please let me know via this blog. I love your refined combination of books, art and cooking. Mr C is so lucky to have such a stylish and intellectual partner! My email is mucking up so please just reply via this blog. Happy eating.

[Elaine]

Taken from an Irish Cook Book
I am pretty certain that Delia Smith has one as well and will check when I get home.
_________________________________

Barm Brack (Traditional Irish Bread)

2 ½ cups Mixed dry fruit--currants, Dark & golden raisins.
1 cup Boiling black tea
1 Egg
1 teaspoon Mixed spice (see note*)
4 teaspoons Marmalade
1 cup (heaping) superfine sugar
2 ½ cups Self-rising flour

Place dried fruit in a bowl, cover with the hot tea and let soak overnight.

The next day:
Preheat oven to 375° F.
Add the remaining ingredients to the re-hydrate fruit and mix well.
Pour batter into greased 7" square pan and bake in the center of oven for 1½ hrs.
Let cool in the pan on a wire rack.
Slice and serve buttered with tea.

NOTE: Mixed spices: equal parts of cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, allspice, and mace.

1. In Northern Ireland and in the Republic, BRACK is the Celtic word for salt and is used to mean "bread". Barm Brack is leavened bread, the word BARM meaning yeast.

2. The term "Barm Brack" for an Irish fruit loaf or cake does not derive from barm or leaven. It is a corruption of the Irish word "aran breac" (Speckled Bread).

[Mr Cornflower]

Mr C is indeed a lucky man in many ways....and it is purely through his own lack of self-control in the face of Cornflower's excellent cooking that since marriage he has put on about 30 pounds.

[Susan]

Thanks Elaine for the recipe. I'm glad you found one with no milk or butter, as that means bread to me, and not cake. But your recipe says hot tea and the others say cold tea. But I'm getting closer I think. Mr C: How about Cornflower adds the sub heading "gentle exercise" to her blog. She could photograph all the lovely walks you go on! I love to eat too, but all you need is a little walk and not all the treats every day... It's when the treats get more than the walks that we get into trouble. Good luck.

[Susan]

Can I ask one more question? When I bake Barm Brack, each of the 3 recipes I tried, I cooked for 90 minutes, as recommended, and then the centre was cooked. But each time the outside was somewhat burnt. How can I avoid this, or is this part of the process? I cut off the clearly burnt bits, which wasn't much. I normally cook cakes for only an hour, and sometimes less. Does anyone know the secret? After 90 mins it's cooked well inside but a little burnt outside. Please help.