Top 8: Frightfully good barmbracks for a traditional Irish Halloween
Sliced Irish fruit loaf with sultanas and cherries isolated on white
Expect to see plenty of enthusiastic black-hatted, skeleton and cobweb-chested young people outside your door on October 31 looking for goodies.
What you give to callers is up to you, but a basket of goodies can be offered, including fresh fruit and nuts, small bags of popcorn, and ideally good quality chocolate mini bars – Moser Roth boxes of five bars from Aldi fit the bill. You may be left with the fruit, but it’s worth a try.
Barmbrack (bairm breac in Irish) contains dried fruit that adds speckles (breac). There is usually yeast instead of the original fermenting malt (bairm), which lightens the bread enriched with butter or less traditional oils.
Many producers blend palm, rapeseed and other oils to reduce costs and extend shelf life.Expect to find protein-rich eggs and milk listed in the ingredients. As a snack, a slice of barmbrack is much better than biscuits or crisps for keeping hunger at bay.
Toasting greatly improves less fruity (or stale) bracks—those with lots of fruit and high sugar content tend to burn. Leftovers can be made into bread pudding and served with savoury patés and salty cheeses—not as scary as it sounds.
A top marker again this year. Sultanas and cherries amounting to 48% are dense and satisfying, with egg, milk, yeast and sugar contributing to a wholesome, generous bite.
Tasters who swim year-round lined up for a second slice. Contains ring. Go online to order or find a list of stockists countrywide. We bought at Roughty Foodie, English Market Cork.
Light but substantial, with plenty of good-quality raisins and cherries, and finished with a light glaze. It makes for a satisfying bite so moist that it doesn’t even need butter.
Teenager tasters also liked this. Another top marker with all tasters. It is available in selected Dunnes Stores and the English Market, Cork.
Ask a staff member for a ring and insert it yourself at home.
This yeasted brack has a decent 43% of sultanas, raisins and juicy currants in a gently spiced mix with palm oil and rapeseed oil. Well-balanced, it’s what tasters expect of a brack.
Without yeast, this is made with buttermilk, and the fruit is soaked in Jameson whiskey.
This divided tasters between the adventurous and the traditionalists, who insist that without the barm, it’s just a brack. It was dense, more cake-like than bready, and deliciously full-flavoured.
Tasters went back for more. No ring.
Bought in frozen and finished in-house, this brack has plenty of fruit (35% sultanas and 8% glacé cherries, though we didn’t see so many cherries, nor much of the lemon or orange peel listed).
The brack hadn’t risen much, despite the yeast, so it was quite dense. Still, it was tasty with light spicing and also had palm oil, as well as rapeseed oil. No ring. We bought in Merchants Quay Cork.
With 35% sultanas and 6% mixed peel, there’s a good balance here for those who don’t like a lot of fruit or spicing.
Good for toasting lightly. Lots of additives for long life. Contains ring. Good value for those on a budget.
A decent mouthful here with 30% sultanas, 7% raisins, 2.5% glacé cherries and 1.5% mixed peel, providing good balance for those who like a moderate amount of fruit and spices.
Sweet potato, radish and apple concentrates (and Irish whiskey) add a surprising fullness of flavour, along with gentle spicing and a little butter (no oils).
There are emulsifiers and a thickener, but the result works. Contains ring.
This in-house baked brack was awarded marks for genuine taste and texture. Various emulsifiers and other additives add to the long shelf life of the Halloween version (which has a ring) but affect the texture. Potential allergens are printed on the label but not the ingredients. I expect it’s a short list. With about 25% sultanas, it is a good one to toast. No ring.
