Stuck For Party Food Ideas?

I have a little recipe for you this evening. It’s for the Irish Halloween cake, barmbrack. Actually, it’s more a bread than a cake but we’ll not split hairs. Either way it’s yummy. I’ll not be baking it myself for another couple of weeks (I‘ve other plans for the blog party), but I did have some shop-bought stuff this morning. Toasted with the butter melting into it, washed down with a good strong cup of tea. Heaven.

It’s really worth going to the effort of making your own ‘cause the kind you buy these days are so boring. Some might taste good, and the odd one might have a cheap plastic ring thrown in, but for health and safety reasons they don’t bake in any other little charms or prizes anymore. When I was a kid it was so exciting to see what you were going to get. You only ever really cared about the coin, though; it was usually a 50p or £1 piece, a fortune in the days when penny sweets cost a penny.  

<---A brack by any other name…image by Tom Allen.

Ah, yet another one of those dying traditions I was lamenting the last day. Fortune telling used to be a big element of an Irish Halloween but, like the poor wee fae, it’s becoming increasingly forgotten. Baking lucky trinkets into things like barmbrack or apple tart was just one of the many ways of predicting your fate for the coming year. If you were served the slice of brack with the coin in it, for example, you could expect a wealthy time ahead. 

A ring, a pea, a thimble, a piece of cloth, a matchstick, a button…any combination of these items or others might be baked into a brack. They all have a meaning, usually something to do with money and marriage, but I can’t recount them all right now. Goggle’d probably tell you. Though you really could use anything that symbolises something to you. Just wrap up the little tokens in greaseproof paper and toss them in to the dough mix!

Right, back to the recipe. Just a few things to note first of all: some people say you should soak the dried fruit in tea over night to make them plump and juicy, but I wouldn’t bother me arse. Keep your tea for drinking with it. And you can also use baking soda instead of the yeast like your supposed to, or even just self raising flour, especially if your as inexperienced a baker as I am. Oh, and in true Irish baking style, all measurements are approximate :)

You will need:
-1lb Dried Fruit (raisins, sultanas, mixed peel etc);
-An Egg;
-1lb Flour;
-1 Teaspoon Baking Soda;
-1 Teaspoon Mixed Spice;
-6oz Brown Sugar;
-Honey for glaze (optional).

Method:
Sift the flour, baking soda, spice etc into the fruit mixture. Add the beaten egg and mix. Pour mixture onto a lined and greased 7” round cake tin. Bake in a preheated oven for about an hour and a half. Let stand for ten minutes then cool on a wire rack. Brush on the melted honey for decoration. 

Naturally, there are much more complicated and fancier recipes out there but this is about the most my oven expertise can handle.  I hope some of you give it a go, and don’t forget to include the lucky charms!