A cross of a soda bread with a Christmas cake, the Irish Barmbrack is suitable for breakfast slathered with Irish butter.
Note: This recipe takes a total of two days to make.
Ingredients
1 cup (227g) brown sugar (light or dark)
1 ¾ cups (248g) dried apricots
1 ¾ cups (248g) raisins
Zest of 1 large orange
Zest of 1 large lemon
2 cups hot and strong Irish black breakfast tea
3 ½ cups (426g) all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
2 eggs, beaten
Day 1
In a medium bowl, combine the apricots, raisins, the zests, and brown sugar.
Pour the hot tea over the mixture and stir to combine. Cover with cling wrap and allow to stand overnight at room temperature. DO NOT REFRIGERATE.
Day 2
Preheat the oven to 325°F. Grease and then line a deep 9 inch cake pan.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and spice.
Drain the fruit mixture, reserving the liquid.
Alternate adding the fruit mixture and the eggs to the dry ingredients. Mix until no dry streaks remain and the batter is well incorporated.Note:If the batter is dry, add a bit of the fruit mixture liquid until the batter comes together.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for about 80-90 minutes, or until the cake is golden and springs back when pressed.
Let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack for 20 minutes, then turn the cake out of the pan onto the wire rack to cool completely.
Slice and serve with butter. Store the brack at room temperature, in an airtight container, for up to 4 days. The brack can also be frozen for at least 4 weeks.
Note:The brack also tastes better the day after baking, once all the flavors have time to mingle.
4
Finals week is finally over. Well, what the school blocks as finals week. English courses have a bit of leeway in the realm of final exams, and I’m likely a bit more lenient than most. In the Literature for Young Adults final today, I asked the students to rank the books in order from one to fourteen. Write two to three paragraphs for each, giving the reasoning behind where it ranked on the list.
I think back to the first day of class. One of my students, Maria, actually questioned how I could assign fourteen books in a single class. I reminded her that they are young adult novels, five of them being graphic novels and several others under 300 pages long. At the end of her final exam, she thanked me for pushing us to read the full curriculum. She told me her English courses the previous semester had really burned her out, and it was nice to have books with stories she actually enjoyed to break up the classics.
I’m not sure what she’s going to do with her English degree, but I wished her the best.
Now, same day, I’m burning the midnight oil helping Michael get the bookstore ready for the fair in two days. I’m the better baker of the two of us, so I help him pretty often by prepping the bakery treats for the store.
