Báirín Breac

Now we are at my favorite part of the season, the days of shifting down into hibernation mode.  Yesterday was not quite our usual post-Christmas day of relaxing as we woke up to a blown-out tire and had a little fire in the oven in the evening.

Today, I am listening to the new CD that my mom and dad gave me and working on New Year’s greetings to put in the mail.  The only thing that is bringing me down is that my husband wasn’t able to use his vacation time to take the week off like he usually does.   I hope you are able to take some time this week to do something for yourself.

We usually spend this week eating up the leftovers and playing with new toys and games.   I have a new toy to figure out, myself this year. The girls got us this Keurig thing and to be honest, I wasn’t quite sure about it at first.  It is not the sort of thing I would buy myself, that’s for sure.    Sometimes my children pay more attention to me than I realize. I like my drinks to be hot and I am always warming things up in saucepans and forgetting about them.  This has not gone unnoticed.  They got us a reusable basket and I can use it to make hot water for little pots of tea, too.

Speaking of cold tea, this was the recipe that I have had the most requests for out of all the goodies I handed out for the holidays.  

Despite what Ballymaloe would have you think this is not barmbrack. Barm means yeast and barmbrack is meant to be a yeasted fruit loaf. I think it would be poor form for someone who is only part Irish American to argue with Darina Allen though. I mean food culture evolves and it is entirely possible that the recipes using baking powder or soda are modernized versions of the original recipe: Barmbrack Shane Smith from Co. Cavan I feel comfortable calling my báirín breac which literally translates to speckled loaf, but I won’t call it barmbrack. So on to my recipe…

The key here is for the tea to be quite strong.  You want to make it in the morning and let it sit all day.   I usually use Irish Breakfast tea, but I’ve made it with Earl Gray, too.

Irish Tea Bread (Báirín Breac)

Ingredients
12 Tbsp very, very strong tea
1-pound dried fruit – currants, raisins, cherries, or any other dried fruit you like combined with 1 tsp grated orange zest
6 ounces light brown sugar
1 tsp mixed spice 
1 egg
1-ounce melted butter or olive oil
9 ounces unbleached organic flour – (or any flour-like substance- almond meal works well in this recipe)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1. Brew the tea.  You should know that my family recipe calls for both whiskey and tea. I use about 50-50, but you can use all tea. I suppose you could use all whiskey, too?
2. Mix the hot tea and whiskey and pour over the dried fruit and orange zest in a bowl that can be covered. 
3. Allow to sit for an hour and then mix in the sugar.
4. Let this mixture sit overnight.
5. In the morning, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 
6. Then mix in the remaining ingredients and pour them into a greased loaf pan. This dough is going to be sticky and traditionally you hide a ring in the loaf.  I personally use
7. I bake little loaves to hand out to friends and they take about 20 minutes.  A larger loaf will take 30-40 minutes to cook. Bake until the temperature reaches 190 degrees F in the center.