Barm Brack Recipe By Lilly Higgins- Báirín Breac Oideas (2024)

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Barm Brack Recipe By Lilly Higgins- Báirín Breac Oideas (3)

October 20, 2022

. Recipes. Seasonal Recipes. Star Chef Recipes

Home » Barm Brack Recipe By Lilly Higgins- Báirín Breac Oideas

This Barm Brack recipe has been handed down to me by my mother. It’s her tea brack but I’ve tweaked it a little. No Halloween spread is complete without a barmbrack. It’s a spooky fortune-telling loaf that also tastes delicious with butter and a hot cup of tea. Such a winning combination! My kids love to bake this with me each year. The trinkets sunk into the batter symbolise what will happen in your future, so make sure to include a few for fun. I always add the ring and coin, wrapped in baking paper, but the others are optional! It’s rare to find most of these fortune-telling tokens in shop-bought barmbracks, as they’re choking hazards, so make sure you wrap them up well and inform everyone they’re there. I once found a rag in a brownie that I was eating in a café in Edinburgh. The prophecy there was that I would never go to that café again!

Barm Brack Recipe by Lilly Higgins and her 3rd book – The Homemade Year

  • Barm Brack Recipe By Lilly Higgins- Báirín Breac Oideas (4)
  • Barm Brack Recipe By Lilly Higgins- Báirín Breac Oideas (5)
  • Barm Brack Recipe By Lilly Higgins- Báirín Breac Oideas (6)
  • Barm Brack Recipe By Lilly Higgins- Báirín Breac Oideas (7)
  • Barm Brack Recipe By Lilly Higgins- Báirín Breac Oideas (8)
  • Barm Brack Recipe By Lilly Higgins- Báirín Breac Oideas (9)

What you’ll need:

300ml hot tea (made with 2 normal teabags and 1 earl grey/cinnamon and liquorice/spiced chai, etc.)

180g sultanas

180g raisins

100g chopped dried dates

1 egg

1–2 tbsp orange juice

150g brown sugar

225g self-raising flour

2 tsp mixed spice

2 tbsp honey, to glaze

Trinkets (optional), wrapped well in baking paper!

Makes 1 barmbrack

Method

  1. The day before you bake, make the tea and leave to stand for 15 minutes.
  2. Place the sultanas, raisins and chopped dates into a bowl. Remove the tea bags from the pot and pour the hot tea over the fruit.
  3. Cover and leave overnight to soak.
  4. The next day preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a 23cm × 12cm loaf tin with baking parchment.
  5. Whisk the egg. Add to the fruit mix along with the orange juice, sugar, flour and mixed spice. Mix well with a wooden spoon.
  6. Spoon into the prepared tin and push any wrapped trinkets halfway down into the batter. Bake for 1½ hours or until a skewer comes out clean.
  7. Turn out onto a wire rack and, while still quite warm, brush the top with the honey.

Optional Fortune-telling trinkets for this Barm Brack recipe and their meanings

The ring: impending marriage, but only if you’re single

The coin: predicts wealth and fortune

The rag: bad luck and poverty, sorry!

The stick: an unhappy marriage

The pea: you won’t be getting married anytime soon

The medal: you’ll join a religious order

Barm Brack Recipe By Lilly Higgins- Báirín Breac Oideas (10)

“You won’t find a pipe cleaner in this book! With a basic arsenal of sticky tape, paper, glue stick and twine you can create magic. Egg boxes, twigs and old clothes can all be transformed into hot water bottle covers, table centrepieces and scented diffusers. Creativity can often be a spur of the moment thing, you feel like making something or a window of time has suddenly opened up (the baby is sleeping or that zoom call is cancelled!) Having to run to the shop for special equipment can dampen the mood.

There are at least six projects for each month of the year that will give you ideas for celebrations, crafts, self care, activities to do with kids, ways to decorate your home and seasonal recipes, all of which are guided by the Irish calendar year, from St Brigid’s crosses in February to Yule Logs in December. These activities are about making the most of what we’ve got, providing inspiration for fun and creativity off screen, slowing down and making the everyday moments special. As we’ve all discovered it’s more important than ever to celebrate the small things.”

Barm Brack Recipe – Lilly Higgins – The Homemade Year

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Barm Brack Recipe By Lilly Higgins- Báirín Breac Oideas (2024)

FAQs

What items are in the Bairin Breac? ›

The Halloween Brack traditionally contained various objects baked into the bread and was used as a sort of fortune-telling game.In the cake were: a pea, a stick, a piece of cloth, a small coin (originally a silver sixpence), a ring, and a bean.

What is a slice of brack? ›

Brack is a traditional Yorkshire tea loaf with a moist texture achieved by steeping the vine fruits in Botham's own-blend Resolution Tea before baking. It is made without adding shortening, and it is delicious served the Yorkshire way with a little bit of butter and cheese!

What do the hidden items inside the Bairin breac mean? ›

Each item, when received in the slice, was supposed to carry a meaning to the person concerned: the pea, the person would not marry that year; the stick, would have an unhappy marriage or continually be in disputes; the cloth or rag, would have bad luck or be poor; the coin, would enjoy good fortune or be rich; the ...

What does the ring in the brack mean? ›

This very Irish Halloween tradition decided your fate, depending on what you found inside. Expand. Barmbrack: whoever got the ring would marry, whoever got the cloth would be a nun and whoever got the stick would never marry. Aoife McElwain.

Why is it called barm brack? ›

In her quest for the perfect recipe, food writer Felicity Cloake learns that barmbrack - or bairín breac (speckled bread, as in speckled with fruit) in Irish - is a close relation of the Welsh bara brith: "a plain, yet richly fruited bread that's well suited to a generous topping of butter, and an excellent ...

What does the rag mean in Irish cake? ›

There is a piece of rag, a coin and a ring in each cake, with each item having a meaning behind it. The rag suggested your financial future is in doubt. The coin is a positive sign and suggests a prosperous year. A ring is also positive and suggests impending romance or continued happiness.

What is the difference between tea brack and barmbrack? ›

Differences Between Tea Brack and Barmbrack

The first is a tea brack, which involves soaking dried fruit in black tea overnight, before baking it into a butter free cake. Barmbrack is different in that it is made using strong flour and yeast. There is far less dried fruit used in a barm brack compared to a tea brack.

What are the symbols of the barmbrack? ›

The most common symbols are a pea, a matchstick, a piece of cloth, a coin, a thimble, and a ring. Of these, the only ones worth having are the coin (unsurprisingly a predictor of wealth) and the ring - but only if you're single and in the market for getting hitched, as it is said to indicate an impending marriage.

What is the ring and rag in the Irish cake? ›

Each member of the family gets a slice of the cake in the hope they might find the ring or the coin. The ring is said to be a sign that the person will find love and be married. The coin is a symbol of future wealth and the piece of cloth unfortunately is a sign of poverty!

What is the superstition about the rag in the cake? ›

The Barnbrack Cake-

There is a piece of rag, a coin and a ring in each cake. If you get the rag, then your financial future is not looking good, if you get the coin then you can look forward to a prosperous year, and if you get the ring it is a sure sign continued happiness and romance!

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