A Recipe And A Little Bit Of Irish Tradition.

As today is the first day of the Mid-Term Break, we are getting into the swing of Halloween. Last year was a complete non-event as we'd had a week of sickly children and an exhausted Mama, and nothing got done in preparation. So this year we have a lot to make up for!

So first I want to share this recipe with you that I first posted here two years ago. If you like fruit bread then I promise you will love this. The tea makes it incredibly moist and it is dense with juicy fruit.
(I have yet to take the time to find a way of making this gluten-free but maybe someday...)

Barm Brack, or Bara Brith in Wales, means Speckled Bread, and is basically a Tea Brack. It is a traditional fruit cake, somewhere between bread and cake, that is eaten at Halloween, and as children, we were enticed to eat it because of the money and the ring that were hidden inside it! Whoever finds the ring will be the first to marry.

You will find recipes that use yeast but bread soda would have been more traditional. This recipe uses baking powder. It also has the addition of lemon and orange zest which would not have been traditional.

As well as the ring for marriage it would also have had: (all wrapped in greaseproof paper)
a coin for wealth
a small piece of cloth for poverty
a pea for plenty
a thimble for a spinster
a button for a bachelor
a matchstick to beat your husband/wife (imagine!!!)

You can guess why most of these have fallen by the wayside...

Ingredients:

12oz mixed fruit like raisins and sultanas.

6oz fructose or coconut sugar.

300ml hot, strong tea.

Zest of 1 lemon and 1 orange.

5oz brown flour, 

4oz white flour, (I use spelt for both)

1 and a quarter tsp baking powder

1 medium egg.

Pour the hot tea over the fruit and sugar and leave over night in the fridge.

The next day stir in the zest.

In a large bowl mix the flours and baking powder, and then add the fruit and the soaking liquid.

Stir in the egg and mix it well.

Turn it into a lined and greased loaf tin, level the surface, and bake it for about an hour and a half at 150c.

I'm lucky I got to photograph this before it was all eaten! Hence the dodgy quality of this pic. It's best eaten thickly sliced with real butter and a big mug of tea. 

Now there's one of my favourite combinations ever. Yum...!

It's also good enough to throw into a round cake tin and present it as cake. I make a thin glaze of icing sugar and enough milk to make a slightly runny icing, and if you have it, a drop of orange essence. 

I'd love to hear what you think if you get a chance to try this!