Bara brith

For a long time now I have had, sitting on my desk top, a recipe for bara brith from the friend who sent me the recipe for Staffordshire oatcakes. So I have at long last decided to look at it - and it looks so tempting that as soon as I have finished this post I am going to go and start it off. You have to soak the fruit in tea overnight. Then tomorrow when I am back to eating (it's a fast day) I shall be able to indulge.

Bara brith is Welsh and it means speckled - or mottled - bread. As with just about every kind of traditional food there are of course thousands of different recipes out there. The irish also have a very similar thing called barmbrack which means the same as the Welsh, but is made with whiskey rather than tea I think. Anyway there seem to be three different things about which people disagree.

Number one is yeast or self-raising flour. The recipe I was given was for self-raising flour, but lots of others have yeast - including Delia, who I have now learnt grew up in Wales. (This is a picture of her version.) Going with yeast is much more complicated, so I think I am going with the self-raising flour, though whether I have any self-raising wholemeal flour as specified in Anthea's recipe I don't know. I used to, so I probably still have some lurking in the back of the cupboard. I gather that one 'origin' story is that it was actually made from leftover bread dough which then had fruit added to it to spice it up and provide a treat.

The next issue is really just a question of name - is it a bread or a cake? Does it matter say I? You make it in a bread tin and it's bread shaped, so I guess you could call it a fruit loaf, but you tend to eat it at teatime, and it's a sweet treat - so more like fruit cake. Well it is a kind of fruit cake isn't it?

And lastly tea or not? I see that Delia has no tea, but to be honest most of the recipes did have tea. You soak the fruit in tea overnight which gives it more flavour. I did see that one guy in Wales even uses Earl Grey sometimes. The split is very possibly regional, with the northern Welsh soaking overnight in tea, and the southerners not. Now I don't like tea but I'm willing to give it a go - maybe with the aforesaid Earl Grey which I do quite like. And I would think that soaking the fruit would make the cake more moist.

Now how much more Welsh can you get than the Prince of Wales - and I say this ironically really. Below is a picture of a high class version of bara brith sold in Fortnum and Mason's using products from the Prince of Wales Highgrove range. Maybe I should do a post on that one day - Highgrove I mean. Anyway the recipe is actually online, though you won't be able to make it with Highgrove tea and marmalade here. This version also included marmalade - which i did see mentioned here and there.

So finally here is Anthea's recipe, which looks to be incredibly simple. I am going to go and soak the fruit now and make it tomorrow. It must be an old recipe from back in her youth in Britain for the quantities are all imperial. Will go and get conversion data.

BARA BRITH

10 oz (275g) mixed Fruit

2/3 pint (378ml) of hot tea

3 oz (75g) of soft brown sugar

Grated rind of 1 lemon

12 oz (350g) of self-raising wholemeal flour

1 teaspoon of mixed spice

1 large egg (I used 2) and some extra water (or milk)

Soak the mixed fruit in the hot tea, cover and leave to stand overnight. Next day set oven to 350F (180 C) and grease and line a 1kg loaf tin. Strain the fruit and reserve the liquid. Mix together the fruit with all the other ingredients in a bowl, adding the reserved liquid a little at a time until a soft dropping consistency is achieved. Put the mixture into the tin and bake for 45-55 minutes until risen and firm to the touch. Cool and serve sliced with butter.

Oh - you can use whatever fruit you like. You could probably put nuts in too if you wanted, though that would probably make it something else. I think I saw one recipe that had chocolate! Apparently 80% of British teenagers have never tasted it - it's a dying thing, so much so that one supermarket withdrew it from their shelves.

I notice that a lot of the recipes glazed the top with syrup, honey or marmalade.