Barm brack is a traditional Irish fruit bread. In old times, people would bake a ring, a coin, and a thimble into the bread and, on Halloween night, each young maiden was served a slice of the bread. The ring meant marriage, the coin meant wealth, and the thimble symbolized spinster. This recipe for barm brack makes two regular loaves or 6 mini loaves.
Prep Time: 2 hours
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup water
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/4 cup butter
- 5 cups bread flour, about
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 tbsp active dry yeast
- 1-1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp grated lemon peel
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup golden raisins
- 1/3 cup glazed fruit mix
Preparation:
- Put water, milk, and butter in saucepan and heat to warm. Remove from burner and set aside.
- In large bowl, mix together 1 cup flour, sugar, yeast, salt, and lemon peel.
- When water mixture is lukewarm, pour into dry ingredients and mix.
- Mix in 2 eggs.
- Mix in enough flour to make a stiff dough.
- Turn dough out onto floured board and knead for about 5 minutes.
- Put dough in greased bowl. Flip dough over in bowl so that the top of the dough is also greased.
- Cover and let rise in warm place for about 45 minutes, or until double in size.
- Punch down. Turn out onto floured board.
- Knead in raisins and fruit.
- Divide dough into 2 equal parts for two regular loaves or into 6 equal parts to make 6 mini loaves. Form parts into loaves.
- Grease bread pans and set loaves in pans. Cover and let rise in warm place for about 30 minutes or until double in size.
- Bake at 375 degrees F for 30 minutes or until bread sounds hollow when top is tapped.
- Turn out onto rack and let cool.
- Bread can be wrapped in foil, bagged, and frozen for later when it is completely cool.
