Sweet Treats – Barmbrack
Known as Bara Brith in Wales, this tea bread is a staple in Ireland. And by tea bread, I mean just that – it’s a sweet fruit cake which features dried fruit soaked in a good strong cup of black tea.
It’s a terrific way to turn everyday ingredients into something quite special. The addition of strong black tea adds an imperceptible something to the cake and is worth your consideration even if fruit cake is not normally your thing. When my friends tried it, they were reminded of a german style malt bread; others will be reminded of the infamous Cheat’s Fruitcake that gets trotted out here at christmas.
Either way, take your time to soak the fruit. Do it overnight if possible. Everything else is a simple matter of dumping in flour and eggs. As for cooking times, it does vary as comments from a couple of years ago attest – I cooked it in a 20cm round tin and it took up the entire time, but the smaller the tin, the shorter the cooking time. A loaf tin for example will take about 80 to 90 minutes.
While I love it best sliced and toasted as a raisin toast in the morning, it’s also fantastic in lunch boxes and an excellent addition this weekend to your Father’s Day festivities.
This makes a 20cm round cake, or you can cook it in a very large loaf tin (about 14 x 20cm)
INGREDIENTS
2 cups mixed dried fruit (or make up your own combination using your choice of sultanas, raisins, craisins, currants, dates, apricots or anything else you have to hand); 250ml (1 cup) cold black tea made with boiling water and 2 teabags (I used Nerada tea); 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar; 1 egg; 2 ½ cups self-raising flour
METHOD
Chop all the fruit to the same size as the sultanas in the mixture and place in a large bowl. Add cold black tea, stir well and cover, then leave it to soak for several hours or overnight.
Preheat oven to 170°C. Grease a loaf tin or round cake tin and line the bottom of the pan with baking paper cut to fit.
Stir the egg into the fruit mixture, then sugar and sifted flour and mix well with a wooden spoon until combined. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin.
Bake for 1 and ¾ hours for a round cake; 80-90 minutes for a loaf tin until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. If the cake becomes too brown on top during the baking, cover the cake with a piece of greaseproof paper or foil and continue cooking.
Stand the cake in the pan for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Serve it sliced with butter.
COST
$4.20 for a 20cm round cake.
The wonderful people at Nerada Tea have ask me to come up with a recipe or two and have given me some incredible varieties of locally produced, organically grown black and herbal teas to play with. While this recipe uses standard black tea, I’m having great fun devising some recipes for more unusual herbal teas and another sweet treat will be posted early next week.
A favourite from childhood after school at Nan’s. I still make it occasionally. The black tea needs to be strong, so we tend to use Irish Breakfast (what else?).
I was going to suggest Irish breakfast but thought that would be too cliched! It’s a lovely cake isn’t it?
It is. Have to admit had Irish breakfast because I had an Irish Nan (well, two actually). We still drink Irish breakfast.
Made this today and it went down very well with hubby. Couldn’t find my stash of Irish Breakfast, so I used Aussie Breakfast instead and only soaked for a few hours as I did not think to check the recipe last night. Still turned out very nice though. Only needed about 80 minutes at 170C, I assume that was due to using a loaf pan.
Will definitely be making again. Hubby wants me to add some whiskey next time.
I made this on Saturday and used English Breakfast (didn’t have Irish breakfast!). It’s a great cake – will definately make it again. I used a loaf pan and it was cooked in an hour and a half. Thanks Sandra!
Thanks for this Sandra – so easy to make and so delicious! I think my Belfast-bred husband has fallen in love with me all over again after cooking this for him while he was suffering with man-flu.
Ahhhh, the restorative powers of Barmbrack for man-flu! I think you’re on to something there Katherine.
Fully recommend this one. I only had sultanas and some dried apricots. Was really lovely, keeps very well and could actually toast it after a couple of days and was the closest I have found to those toasted fruit breads sold in cafes. Next time I will add some walnuts or pecans I think.
Thanks Sandra, years ago a friend gave me a fruit cake recipe with tea in it and I have been hunting for it everywhere. I think this is the same recipe. Nothing like a slice of fruit cake with a cup of hot tea.
Delicious!! This is almost the same as a recipe I have that uses “Fruit Medley” that can be bought from the dried fruit section of the supermarket and needs no cutting up!!
Hi Sandra,
All my fruit sunk to the bottom of the loaf! Where do you think I went wrong?
Cheers, Sarah
Oh dear!
A couple of things: First of all, measure the ingredients precisely to make sure the mixture was not too wet (that is, make sure you don’t add too much tea).
Assuming you did all this, the next step is to take half a cup of the flour and thoroughly coat the fruit in it. Just sprinkle it over the fruit and toss it through. It helps the fruit ‘stick’ to the batter around it and resist falling to the bottom. I hope it helps you to get great results next time.
Sx
Delicious! And oh so easy.
Never one to leave well enough alone, I made mine substituting a little wholemeal flour in and some oats in place of the flour. It needed a little extra moisture to help the oats along, but it gave a lovely weighty chew to the cake. Or possibly bread. Or possibly just ‘life support system’. So unbelievably good.
Life Support System – love it.
You know, there would be patients in hospital that would pay increased taxes for improvement to their diet like this one. Just think of the health benefits! x