8 hours ago
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Bara brith, the traditional Welsh fruit loaf whose name means speckled bread, is, as Ben Mervis notes, not dissimilar to Yorkshire brack, Irish barmbrack and Scottish “kerrie loaf” – the last is a new one on me, though, of course, I’m more than familiar with how well they all pair with strong tea and cold salty butter. According to food writers Laura Mason and Catherine Brown, they were originally known as teisen dorth in south Wales, and they date the recipe to no earlier than the beginning of the 20th century. However, the digitising of records since their book Food of Britain was published in 1999 allowed me to find a reference to it being eaten before school examinations in Bala, Gwynedd, in Seren Cymru from 1857. (Pen Vogler notes that “anything made with flour, however, is likely to be relatively modern, as wheat was too unreliable to be a staple in wet, upland Wales.”) There’s no reason to doubt the pair’s claim that bara brith was originally made from excess bread dough, but I think it’s good enough to need no such excuse.
The raising agent
The biggest divide in bara brith recipes is between those raised with yeast, as seems to have been more common up until the mid-20th century, raised with yeast, and those that take advantage of chemical raising agents – the earliest recipe I find that uses baking powder comes from a Miss AM Davies of Montgomeryshire (modern-day northern Powys), and appears in the 1946 collection Farmhouse Fare. The pastry chef Roger Pizey notes in his book World’s Best Cakes that, while “originally bara brith included yeast … I prefer this yeast-free version that tastes better the day after you have made it”. It cannot be denied that baking powder and bicarbonate of soda are far less capricious than yeast, and give good moist results – Elizabeth Luard’s recipe, which she credits in A Cook’s Year in a Welsh Farmhouse to her “neighbour and tutor in all things Welsh, Jane Edwards”, who got it “from her mother, who had it from her mother, which is good enough for me”, is particularly squidgy.
That said, though I’d by no means class the modern bara brith as inferior, their softer, crumblier texture places them in the cake, rather than bread category. Yeast, meanwhile, as used by Regula Ysewijn in her book Oats in the North, Wheat from the South, chef Bryn Williams (whose recipe comes from his nain) and the great collector and conservator of old Welsh recipes, Bobby Freeman, in her Book of Welsh Bread, gives a lighter, chewier crumb that’s better suited to topping with butter and serving for tea. Like Freeman, I’m of the opinion that we have enough recipes for fruit cakes and bara brith doesn’t need to be one of them – though, if you’re in a hurry, the lovely-looking recipe from Anna Jones’s mother-in-law Sian should do the trick.
The flour
Almost everyone just specifies flour, with the exception of Freeman, who calls for wheatmeal flour, a mixture of white flour and wheat bran that’s hard to find these days. Though there’s no need to use bread flour, it will give a lighter texture, so I’ve recommended it. The slightly rough texture and robust flavour of Freeman’s loaf proved so popular with my testers that I’ve suggested adding a little wholemeal flour to the mix as well as the white variety. If you don’t fancy buying two different sorts of flour, just use one or the other, bearing in mind that wholemeal flour, which Jones uses in her bara brith (see above), will absorb more liquid than the white sort, so you’ll need to adjust the amount of buttermilk accordingly. I rather belatedly came across a recipe from Mrs EB Jones, proprietor of the Powys Temperance Hotel on Market Square, Llanrhaeadr-Ym-Mochnant, which uses a proportion of oat flour, too – I haven’t tried it yet, but reports are good. Gluten-free readers, meanwhile, might be interested in Ceri Jones’s take.
The fat
Contrary to my assumption that bara brith was a fatless loaf, most recipes incorporate lard or butter; only Edwards and Mervis stick to eggs alone (which do, of course, contain fat, but that’s by the by). Lard is more popular in older formulas (one from 1929 substitutes beef dripping) and gives the crumb a pleasant softness, but butter has the better flavour – it’s still frustratingly hard to get hold of lard with any kind of traceability, so I’ve left the choice up to you. (Vegans: Gaz Oakley has a plant-based version that uses margarine and looks good to me.)
Davies, writing in a time of rationing, calls for powdered egg and Mervis, Ysewijn and Edwards for the fresh variety, but I don’t think Williams or Freeman’s recipes suffer from their omission. I think Davies’ buttermilk seems to help make the crumb especially soft, but if you can’t get hold of any, you could swap it for Williams’ water or Freeman’s ordinary milk.
The sugar
Mervis’ recipe in The British Cookbook includes caster sugar, Davies’ brown sugar, which popular opinion agrees probably refers to the same soft light brown sugar used by Williams’ grandmother, while Freeman recommends molasses sugar (the same dark brown muscovado deployed by Edwards) and Ysewijn suggests replacing her white sugar with golden syrup, which, I caution, does make the dough very sticky and hard to knead. If you’re making this by hand, it’s probably best to confine the syrup (or Davies’ treacle) to a single tablespoon for flavour.
Indeed, I’ve kept the sweetness in general quite minimal here; Davies and Edwards both use half as much sugar as flour, while Williams’ more austere loaf calls for one part sugar to 7½ parts flour; Freeman uses even less. While bara brith should be sweet (arguably), it must be borne in mind that dried fruit is itself very sugary and, as mentioned previously, this is not a cake. I’ve gone for the darkest, most treacly kind for its robust, bitter edge.
The fruit
As Jones notes, “traditionally, raisins, currants and sultanas are used in bara brith, but I like to mix in dates, dried apricots and sour cherries, too” – though I’ve kept things classic with gritty little currants (forever my favourite of the dried vine fruits) and plump golden sultanas, you might like to ring the changes. I would recommend including candied peel, however (though if you don’t have any, or don’t care for it, you might prefer Mervis’ spoonful of marmalade or Davies’ grated lemon zest).
Soaking the fruit in tea seems now to be regarded as a defining characteristic of bara brith, though the early recipes don’t mention this step, leading me to wonder if it’s perhaps a misunderstanding over the name tea loaf, which, in fact, refers to the occasion for which it was generally served. Nevertheless, it does give the bread a pleasant squidginess, so it’s a positive development in my opinion; I particularly love the citrus tang of Ysewijn’s earl grey. It’s worth taking a little time to pat the fruit dry before you incorporate it into the dough, so it doesn’t make things too sticky and wet, and I like to add it after the yeast has had a chance to get going, so the soaked fruit doesn’t interfere with the first proof.
The spices and extras
Everyone but Davies specifies mixed spice (non-UK readers might find it helpful to know that this refers to a mixture of sweet spices usually including allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, mace and cloves, and is easy enough to blend at home); she uses caraway seeds, “if liked” (I do) and “spices”, which I suspect refers to the same sort of flavours. Be aware that many of these sweet spices inhibit yeast activity, so it’s safer to add them at the same time as the fruit.
Many of the loaves have a delicious crackly top crust, but Mervis goes one better and glazes the top of his bara brith with honey, leaving it irresistibly shiny and golden.
Perfect bara brith
Prep 15 min
Soak 2 hr+
Rise 1 hr 30 min+
Cook 40 min
Makes 1 loaf
75g sultanas
75g currants
25g candied peel
150ml just-brewed hot earl grey, or other black tea
150g strong white flour
100g strong wholemeal flour
7g quick/instant/fast-acting yeast
50g dark brown sugar
½ tsp fine salt
30g lard, or butter, melted and left to cool
150ml buttermilk, or ordinary milk, at room temperature
½ tsp caraway seeds (optional)
½ tsp mixed spice
1 tbsp honey, or syrup or sugar, to glaze
Put the dried fruit and peel in a heatproof bowl and pour over the hot tea. Leave to sit for a few hours, or overnight, then drain in a sieve, reserving any remaining liquid.
Put both flours in a large bowl and stir through the yeast, sugar and salt. Add the cooled fat, any reserved drained tea (but not the fruit itself for now) and enough buttermilk to bring the mix together into a coherent but not too sticky dough.
Transfer to a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a damp tea towel and leave in a warmish place for about an hour, until significantly expanded (it may not actually double in size). Meanwhile, tip the drained soaked fruit on to a clean tea towel and pat dry.
Tip out the dough on to a clean surface, press it down flat, then tip the fruit and spices all over the top. Knead by folding the dough over on itself several times, as if making pastry, until the fruit mix is thoroughly incorporated.
Lightly grease a small loaf tin (I use a 22cm x 11cm one), put the dough in it, then cover lightly and leave to prove again until the dough has risen to the top of the tin.
Heat the oven to 200C (180C fan)/390F/gas 6, then bake the loaf for about 40 minutes, until the top is a rich, brown colour. Heat the honey (or syrup or sugar) with a dash of water until melted, then use this to brush the top of the loaf. Leave to cool, then slice and serve.
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Bara brith: are you team sweet and cakey, or plain and yeasted, traditional or personalised? And if you prefer to leave it to the professionals, where would you recommend going to try some?
