Bara Brith
Happy St David’s Day! Or to our Welsh cousins, “Dydd Gลตyl Dewi Hapus!” It is no secret that here at Baking with Granny we are firmly a Scottish family. Still, in celebration of the National Welsh holiday, we have managed to obtain a couple of traditional Welsh recipes to share with you. The first being…
Happy St David’s Day! Or to our Welsh cousins, “Dydd Gลตyl Dewi Hapus!” It is no secret that here at Baking with Granny we are firmly a Scottish family. Still, in celebration of the National Welsh holiday, we have managed to obtain a couple of traditional Welsh recipes to share with you. The first being Bara Brith.
Much like how Scotland has St Andrew’s Day, England has St George’s Day, and Ireland has St Patrick’s Day, Wales has St David’s Day, a day in which they celebrate the life of the patron saint of Wales. Each year on the 1st March, the people of Wales dawn daffodils & leeks, hold parades & concerts, and feast on traditional Welsh foods & drinks.
Such foods include Welsh Rarebit, Cawl, Welsh Cakes and of course, Bara Brith.
So, what is Bara Brith?
The name originates from the Welsh words for “bread” (bara) and “speckled” (brith), so it quite literally translates to “bread speckled.” Presumably referring to the appearance of the dried mixed fruit, speckled throughout the loaf. And traditionally, it would have been made using yeast and resembled more of a bread appearance & texture.
These days, it is made without yeast and is more along the lines of a moist, dense, sticky fruit cake. And it is truly delicious, especially when sliced and enjoyed with a generous spreading of butter!
Did you know “Baking with Granny” is “Podi gyda Nain” in Welsh?
Ingredients for Bara Brith:
Dried Mixed Fruit
Most supermarkets now stock an own-brand bag of dried mixed fruit, which is generally a combination of currants, raisins, sultanas and mixed peel. However, if you aren’t able to find one, or there is a particular dried fruit you aren’t keen on, you can easily make your own by mixing the individual fruits to the required weight.
Hot Tea
Exactly as it sounds, you need a cup of hot tea. This is used for soaking the dried mixed fruit overnight, allowing the currants, raisins and sultanas to plump up a little. As well as adding moisture to the Bara Brith.
The teabag you have for your usual cuppa is just fine. For those overseas, a strong English Breakfast tea is what you are after. However, if you are feeling adventurous (and don’t mind straying from tradition), you could even experiment with different teas; an Earl Grey perhaps?
Soft Dark Brown Sugar
There is some sweetness within the dried mixed fruit but some sugar is a welcome addition to your Bara Brith. This recipe uses a soft dark brown sugar; however, you could use a soft light brown sugar if that is what you have to hand. In fact, you could even use a caster, granulated, muscovado sugar…; whatever sugar you use will be dissolved in the hot tea, so texture isn’t a big factor, but different sugars will influence the overall taste of your final loaf.
Mixed Spice
One of my most favourite ingredients that adds a little something extra to the flavours of Bara Brith. You can buy little jars of Mixed Spice in my UK supermarkets, but if you are overseas, you can easily mix your own from individual spices.
Self-raising Flour
Bara Brith is quite a dense loaf cake, but by using self-raising flour over plain flour, you allow just a little bit of lift to the end result.
Free-range Egg
The egg is an important addition to Bara Brith as it works like the glue holding the rest of the ingredients together. The size of the egg isn’t too important, just make sure you are using free-range.
Bara Brith
INGREDIENTS
- 400 g Dried Mixed Fruit (raisins, sultanas, currents, peel)
- 300 ml Hot Tea (English Breakfast, Earl Grey…)
- 100 g Soft Dark Brown Sugar (Dark Brown Sugar)
- 1 tsp Mixed Spice (Pumpkin Spice)
- 250 g Self-raising Flour
- 1 Free-range Egg (beaten)
INSTRUCTIONS
- In a large bowl, place your dried mixed fruit, hot tea and sugar. Once the tea cools, cover and leave the fruit to soak up the tea and sugar over night.
- The next day, preheat your oven to 180ยฐc (160ยฐc fan-assisted ovens, Gas Mark 4 or 350ยฐF). Line a 2lb loaf tin with greaseproof paper and set aside.
- Sift the flour and mixed spice into the bowl of soaked mixed fruit. Add the [beaten] egg and mix everything together until well combined.
- Pour the mixture into your lined loaf tin, spreading to the corners. Bake in your pre-heated oven for about 1 hour, until dry on top and a skewer inserted comes out clean.
- Once cool, remove from the tin but keep the greaseproof paper lining on. Bara Brith is best enjoyed after a couple of days kept in an air tight container, sliced with a spread of butter/margarine.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
All my recipes are developed using a digital scale and the metric system (grams and millilitres). Cup measurements are available as a conversion but these, unfortunately, won’t always be as accurate. For best results, I always recommend baking with a digital scale.
I should point out as well that like our Welsh Cakes, this recipe comes directly from a Welshman; my godmother’s partner to be exact. We may be able to confidently claim our recipes to be traditional when they are Scottish, but I wanted to make sure our Welsh recipes come from a reliable source too.
So, a special shout-out goes to Stephen for being kind enough to share his Bara Brith recipe!
Great recipe easy and tasty.
My dear Welsh Grandmother used to make bara brith and send it through the post to us along with the Christmas presents.
Tucked into the wrapper of the bara brith was the date it was made.
A minimum six weeks to mature was the rule.
Fantastic easy recipe and tastes delicious will definitely be baking again think this will become a new family favourite
Thank you for the great recipe
Making this delightful looking tea bread for the first time. What do I do with the liquid soaking the fruit ? Do I throw it away or use it in the recipe ?
Leave the liquid in there and just add the flour, mixed spice, and the egg.
Mix it together put in the tin and cook it.
This is not traditional bara brith. This is a type of tea bread. Bara brith is a yeasted bread.
It does say that in the introduction .
“traditionally it would have been made using yeast and resembled more of a bread appearance & texture.
These days, it is made without yeast and is more along the lines of a moist, dense, sticky fruit cake.”
I am 78 years of age and have had and made Bara Brith all my life. There is not yeast in it. End of story