Irish · Dessert
Barmbrack
- Intermediate
- 2 h 30 m
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, warm spice humming through the middle, closing toasted and warm.
Ingredients
- 350g mixed dried fruit, soaked OVERNIGHT in 300ml strong black tea (+ whiskey, optional but wise)
- 250g self-raising flour
- 125g brown sugar, 1 egg
- 1 tsp mixed spice (cinnamon, nutmeg, clove)
- Butter, thickly applied, to serve
The skills inside
Soaking dried goods back to life
The words inside
Mandoline & the Slicing MachinesDragon Fruit
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · egg · alcohol
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Soak the fruit in tea until swollen and boozy-plump.
- Mix flour, sugar, spice; beat in egg and the fruit with its remaining tea.
- Scrape into a lined loaf tin; bake 170°C, 60–75 min. 75 min
- Wrap and keep a day before slicing: brack improves in the tin. Toast the ends.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Soaking dried goods back to life 69 recipes
- Fully submerged with room to swell: the level is well above everything at the start and still above it at the end.
- Given the full time, and judged by what is in the bowl rather than by the hours on the clock.
- Tested at the CENTRE of the largest piece, cut or pressed. Anything with a hard dry core will still have one after cooking, because the outside softens first and stops the water getting further in.
- The soaking water was dealt with on purpose: kept because it holds flavour, or thrown away because it holds what should not be eaten, but never simply left undecided.
- Drained before it is used, so the dish does not silently gain all the water that came with it.
Where it goes wrong Too little water, or too little time. The pieces swell until they are packed tight against each other and the ones in the middle never fully take up water; they will not soften later in the dish either, so the finished plate has hard pieces scattered through it.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Sauternes
- Also Right
- Demi-sec Champagne
- From the Taps
- Belgian tripel
- Zero-Proof
- Jasmine tea
The sweetness rule is absolute: the pour must be sweeter than the plate, and acid keeps it from cloying.
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