Top eight: The best barmbracks for Halloween
Picture: Stock image
WITH door-to-door visits unlikely this year, one of the best parts of Halloween may well be the celebration of Ireland’s traditional barmbrack (bairm breac). Originally made with the drawn off yeast from fermenting malt (bairm), nowadays it’s made from bakers’ yeast.
In the past, flour was enriched with an egg, milk and butter, but bracks in large bakeries have oils (often Irish rapeseed, but also palm oil — often imported from areas with little consideration for the environment). The result is a less interesting flavour and texture. Breac in Irish means speckled which comes from further enrichment and sweetening with dried fruit — sultanas, raisins, mixed peel (sometimes soaked in tea or alcohol) — and flavoured with mixed spice.
