Barm Breac* recipes
It’s that time of year again. Here are two recipes for the traditional Irish Hallowe’en cake
Recipe supplied by Imelda Murphy
Traditions.
In Ireland at Halloween, it is just as easy to buy Barm Brack from a bakery or even the supermarket. But here is a lovely traditional recipe that is easy to make with simple ingredients to bring the taste of Halloween here. Some bakeries would put a ring for marriage or a pea for poverty.
Every Irish family had a Barm Brack on the table around Halloween.
Ingredients:
250g plain flour
2 tsps. of baking powder
1 tsp of mixed spice powder
375g packet of fruit mix
250ml cold tea
50ml of whiskey
125g light brown sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten.
40gr butter, melted.
A ring or coin to place inside.
Method.
Dissolve the sugar in the cold tea and whiskey, add the mixed fruit and soak overnight.
Add the melted butter and beaten egg, into the fruit mixture and mix well.
Sift the flour, baking powder and mixed spice, together.
Add sifted flour mix in two lots, mix thoroughly after each lot.
Pour batter into a lined 8 inch, 22 cm cake tin, or loaf tin.
Wrap the coin in baking paper, Push into the batter.
Bake on a conventional setting at 180° C or Fan forced at 160° C for 1 hour.
Allow to cool.
Slice and the person who gets the coin has a fortune-filled year.
Imelda Murphy
Imelda is a Chef from County Waterford, Ireland. She moved to Australia in 1989. Her first job after her apprenticeship was working at a hotel in Waterford City. In Australia she worked at the Celtic Club, in Melbourne’s CBD, cooking for The Fury brothers, Jim Stynes and Irish politicians. Over the years she’s cooked many different cuisines. In her current role for Smeg Australia, an Italian oven brand, she feels she has cooked a dish from nearly every cuisine over the years, but Irish food will always be her favourite.
This recipe below is from my 1992 Step-By-Step Irish Cooking well-worn and spotted book whose cover has been lost over the years.
Barm Breac
Ingredients
500g raisins cut in half
500g sultanas
1 cup brown sugar
2 tsp grated lemon rind
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 cup hot strong tea
Two thirds cup Irish whiskey
4 eggs lightly beaten
3 and a half cups plain flour
3 tsps baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
Half tsp ground allspice
Method
- Place fruit, sugar, lemon rind and juice, tea, and whiskey into a large mixing bowl.
- Cover and allow to stand overnight.
- Preheat oven to 150c. Brush a deep 23cm round cake tine with melted butter, line base and sides with baking paper; grease paper. Our eggs into soaked fruits and mix.
- Sift together flour and baking powder and spices. Spoon into fruit mixture and stir until dry ingredients are moistened.
- Spoon into prepared baking tin. Smooth surface. Bake 150c for 1 hour or until cooked.
- Cool slightly in tin before turning out.
*Irish bairín breac spotted loaf
Dymphna is a member of the Tinteán collective
Tinteán 