Irish Raisin Bread Recipe - Easy Traditional Barmbrack Fruit Loaf (2024)

FAQs

What is the difference between tea brack and barmbrack? ›

This is a more modern version of barmbrack, now commonly called a 'tea brack' because the dried fruit is soaked in tea overnight to plump it up. Everyone in Ireland loves a barmbrack, perhaps because it brings back lots of memories of excitement and games at Halloween.

Barmbrack (Irish: bairín breac), also often shortened to brack, is a yeast bread with added sultanas and raisins.

Irish brown bread has a deep, nutty flavor because of its wheat flour and wheat bran while soda bread uses only white flour. Soda bread is slightly sweet and more scone-like while Irish brown bread is more savory with a tender interior.

Barmbrack, Irish tea brack or in Gaelic, bairín breac (meaning speckled loaf) is a traditional sweetened bread commonly made around the Halloween season in Ireland. Many of the older traditional recipes use yeast, and are lighter in colour and texture than the bracks most people come across today.

Barmbrack is a traditional Irish sweetened bread. In Gaelic it's known as báirín breac, or “speckled loaf” due to the way it is dotted with raisins.

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.

'Barm' refers to the froth leftover after fermenting beer or ale which is mixed with the dried fruit to make this heavy fruit cake. It is an Irish custom to add a ring to the cake. Irish superstition has it that whomever receives this ring in their slice will be the next person to marry or indeed receive good fortune!

As its Irish language name bairín breac (speckled bread) suggests, barmbrack has much in common with the Welsh bara brith: a plain, yet richly fruited bread that's well suited to a generous topping of butter, and an excellent accompaniment to a pot of tea.

It was for everyday use, and its distinctive soft, crumbly, dense texture results from the "soft" wheat that grows in the cool climate of Ireland, meaning that it doesn't have enough protein to form the gluten structure of yeast-raised breads. Hence the use of baking soda, originally potash, as a leavening agent.

Irish soda bread was first created in the 1830s, when baking soda was first introduced to the UK. At the time, Ireland was facing financial hardship and lack of resources, so they turned to soda bread out of neccessity, it was inexpensive and required few ingredients.

What is Irish soda bread called in Ireland? ›

In Ulster, the wholemeal variety is usually known as wheaten bread and is normally sweetened, while the term "soda bread" is restricted to the white savoury form. In the southern provinces of Ireland, the wholemeal variety is usually known as brown bread and is almost identical to the Ulster wheaten.

Most Irishmen and women eat Irish brown bread for breakfast or lunch. It's best served simple, with a pad of Kerrygold butter or used as a dunker with soup. Maybe second only to its spirits, (the adult beverage type), bread is without a doubt, baked into the Irish culture.

Most Americans probably know by now that St. Patrick's Day is amore festive holiday here than in Ireland, where locals are morelikely to observe the holiday by going to church instead ofdrinking green beer and eating corned beef and cabbage. They do, however, eat Irish soda bread in Ireland.

A traditional full Irish breakfast comprises bacon, sausage, eggs, potatoes, beans, soda bread or toast, tomatoes, mushrooms, and white or black pudding.

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 ...

As its Irish language name bairín breac (speckled bread) suggests, barmbrack has much in common with the Welsh bara brith: a plain, yet richly fruited bread that's well suited to a generous topping of butter, and an excellent accompaniment to a pot of tea.

Barmbrack: whoever got the ring would marry, whoever got the cloth would be a nun and whoever got the stick would never marry. From the Jack-o-Lantern to the idea of spirits roaming the world for a night, many modern Halloween traditions can trace their roots back to Ireland.

Tea cakes can trace their origin back to Great Britain where “afternoon tea” is still a part of everyday life. Afternoon tea began in the 1840s as a tradition of having a tea in the afternoons as a way to stave off hunger until the dinner meal was served.