Happy St. Patrick’s Day! In honor of the holiday, I gave a barm brack recipe a whirl. A ring and a quarter are usually hidden in these traditional Irish cakes: the lucky person to find the quarter is destined to become wealthy, and the finder of the ring will be married in the near future. Since the recipe does not call for frosting, I’m going to refer to these as muffins (cupcakes, in my book, always have some sort of icing).
A quick caveat: allspice isn’t for everyone, so this may not be the crowd-pleaser that the chocolate cake was from a previous post. However, why not get into the spirit of the day (especially when this doesn’t require any green dye)?
Ingredients
– raisins – golden raisins – currants – black tea {brewed} – flour – allspice – brown sugar – baking powder – salt – egg – butter – milk
Directions
Soak 1/2 cup raisins, 1/2 cup golden raisins and 1/2 cup currants in 1 cup brewed black tea overnight (or for at least 6 hours).
The following day, preheat the oven to 400 degrees and grease a muffin pan.
In a large bowl, mix 4 cups flour, 1 tsp allspice, 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1 tsp baking powder and a pinch of salt. In a separate bowl, mix together 1 egg and 1/2 cup melted butter. Strain the soaked dried fruit, and add to the wet mixture. Fold into the dry ingredients, slowly stirring until fully combined, alternating with 1 cup milk (I used 2%).
Measure the batter into the pan, distributing equally between the 12 cups. This is when, if you so desire, you should place a ring and a quarter (heavily cleaned/soaked with dish soap) into two separate muffin molds. Bake for 30 minutes (depending on your oven and altitude) until the tops are golden brown. Remove and cool for 5 minutes in the pans, then remove and cool on a wire rack. Serve warm, traditionally with butter.
These are a great breakfast treat any morning, but especially when the day’s plans may include imbibing, another of today’s traditions. Sláinte!
Until next time,
SugarSource
SugarSource 
Is it possible that this recipe is missing some liquid? When I made them as instructed, there was no way it could incorporate 4 cups of flour and still had large amounts of dry flour. I had to add a full cup extra of liquid and even then it was not a “batter” consistency but a very thick sticky mixture – more what I would call a dough consistency. Thanks
Hi Emma,
Great catch and my apologies! This is missing 1 cup milk in the instructions. I am going to amend now!
SugarSource