Barmbrack (Irish Sweet Bread)

Originally, barmbrack had mostly caraway seeds, and later, after 1930, currants steeped in tea (or anything, Irish whiskey, for instance). Candied peel was added next, zest was not an option, neither were golden raisins.

Sweet breads like this were always baked in a round cake pan, not a bread pan.

The bread was originally raised with ale yeast (barm-brack) the leftover hops liquid from brewing ale.

In most of the Irish recipes for barmbrack which I've seen, the fruit is marinated overnight in tea. This gives the bread a rather darker colour than in the photo, as well as a rather interesting flavour.

Wish I had read all the notes folks submitted. I do like Tannis' comments and historical backgrounds, but, this is the last Tannis recipe I prepare. I'm a fair cook, and have tried at least a half dozen of his recipes, all of which were off somehow. I thought it was me. Respectfully suggest that someone on NY Times Food staff test the recipes beforehand. No pan size? Really. Dough far too wet to handle. And so on ...

I spent the first 30 years of my life in Ireland - this is not traditional. Traditionally it was served at Halloween only. And sultanas were readily available! Both a ring and a penny (wrapped in parchment paper) were buried in the cake. Whoever got the ring would be the next to marry and whoever got the penny would be rich.

The flour/milk ratio is way off. It's 3.5 cups flour to 1 cup milk. Also the addition of butter and chopped citrus peel are essential. Zest doesn't cut it!

Well, it finally came out OK, though not without a struggle. Why no mention of the size of the pan? I could barely deal with this soupy dough, and then had to bake it almost twice as long to get a decent consistency. I can usually depend on the NY Times recipes, but not this one. Very careless.

As many have pointed out, the dough was very wet, so I didn't knead it but poured it into my one loaf pan like I would cake batter (or banana bread). At first, the dough came up to 1/3 of the pan, and hadn't risen much over the next hour or the next. But it had reached 7/8 of the pan when I checked on it after 6 more hours. My version actually came out looking more moist than the one in the picture, and I was glad I hadn't tried to knead the dough because I found the bread slightly chewy.

I've made this a number of times exactly according to this recipe. Yesterday, I accidentally left out the sugar and, at breakfast, couldn't tell the difference!

I used rapid rise yeast. Combined dry ingredients. In a measuring cup I heated milk in the microwave to 125 degrees, added butter which melted, added egg and whisked these wet ingredients together. Added to dry ingredients and kneaded in the mixer for 5 minutes.
Upon taking the loaf from the oven I rubbed it with butter and sprinkled with with a thick coating of icing sugar (powdered sugar).

It's even worse than that - the egg (another 60g) and even sugar count as liquid too.

Vs. Allen recipe they lost a few grams here and there in the conversions from metric to English and back to metric . She mentions that this is a very wet dough. But the main difference is that she calls for "strong" flour rather than all purpose. Strong flour is the UK equivalent of bread flour. Bread flour will result in a somewhat stiffer dough but it's still gonna be wet.

I made this as a Gluten-free loaf, quite successfully! I'm looking forward to making it again. I used some sorghum flour, and the flour mix from Cook's Illustrated Gluten-free cookbook (the first one). I added a teaspoon of baking powder to aid in the rise of the gluten-free flour. It was great slightly warm from the oven, room temp the next day, and as toast, too. Loved it!

Adapted recipe to my Zojirushi breadmaker using "Raisin Bread" as guide. Came out delicious.

Soupy? I think you skipped a step. You're supposed to knead on a floured surface until smooth. Meaning, add a flour until the loaf is smooth.

I just tried this and it was a disaster. The original recipe by Rachel Allen has a hydration (water divided by flour) of 67%, which is pretty standard. This one is 74%, which is like a wet ciabatta dough. I followed the directions and the dough was soup; it never came together. I added another 52 g flour to make it at least cohesive.

Followed the instructions and had no problems. Finished making the dough before I decided what size of loaf pan to use. The dough was very soft but well floured board and a good dusting of flour on the dough made kneading easy. Tasty. Will make it again.