Bara Brith Bread Recipes

Steps:

• Tip the fruit into a bowl with the sugar and orange zest. Pour over the tea, stir everything together and leave to soak overnight.
• Heat oven to 160C/140C fan/gas 3. Grease and line the base and short sides of a 900g/loaf tin with 1 strip of baking parchment. Tip the flour and spice into a bowl, and beat in the fruit and soaking liquid. Add the egg, followed by the butter. Beat until you have a well-combined, stiff batter, then tip into the prepared loaf tin. Bake for 1¼ hrs, covering with foil or parchment if the top starts to get too dark. Check with a skewer - if it doesn't come out clean, give it another 5-10 mins in the oven.
• Leave to cool in the tin for 10 mins, then remove and leave to cool completely. Serve sliced and buttered, if you like.

Steps:

• Oven: 450F, Gas Mark 8 for 15 minutes: 375F, Gas Mark 5 for 45 minutes.
• Soak the fruit and candied peel in the water with the spice.
• Leave to steep in a warm place and use the warm spicy, strained water to mix the dough.
• Sift the flour and salt and rub in the lard; cream the yeast with the sugar and a little of the spiced water; mix this into the flour, together with the eggs and use enough of the water to give a firm, yet elastic dough.
• Knead well, leave to rise and knock back; blend in the drained fruit and knead again.
• Shape the dough into loaves and set into greased 1 lb tins in a warm place to prove; bake, reducing the temperature after the first 15 minutes.
• Originally, in some recipies, the fruit content would have been fresh currants or blackberries.
• Bara Brith is often served as part of the traditional Welsh tea.
• It can also be purchased at many of the small bakeries found throughout Wales.
• British Cookery (BTA/BFPC)

Steps:

• Put the fruit in a large basin with the sugar, and just cover with warm strained tea. Leave overnight.
• Next day, add to the fruit mixture the marmalade, cinnamon, the beaten egg and flour. Mix well together until you have a nice, slack mixture.
• Bake in a loaf tin, greased and lined with buttered paper. Bake at 325F for 1 1/2 hours.
• Preparation time is overnight soaking, plus 10 minutes active preparation the following day.
• You can get interesting flavours by choosing unusual teas.

Steps:

• Combine 1 1/4 flour and the other dry ingredients (first five).
• In a saucepan heat buttermilk, sugar, butter and salt just until warm (115-120 degrees F), making sure butter is melted; stir constantly.
• Add to flour mixture, adding the egg in as well. Beat on low speed of electric mixer for 30 seconds. Then beat at high speed for 3 minutes.
• Stir in currant or raisins and as much of the remaining flour as can be mixed with a spoon. Turn onot floured surface and knead in enough of the remaining flour to make moderately stiff dough (takes 6-8 minutes).
• Shape into ball and place into a greased bowl, turning it over once. Cover and let rise until doubled (about 1 1/4 hours). Punch down and shape into a loaf. Put into a greased 8x4x2 inch loaf pan, cover and let rise till nearly double (30 minutes).
• Bake in oven at 375 degree F for 35-40 minutes, making sure to cover with foil the last 20 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool.

Steps:

• 1. Place chopped up dried fruit in a bowl, pour tea over fruit, add brown sugar and mix well. Cover and store in refrigerator overnight.
• 2. Preheat oven to 325 degrees and grease a 9x5x3 loaf pan. Add flour, milk, egg, marmalade and cinnamon to the fruit/tea mixture and mix until well combined. Pour dough into loaf pan.
• 3. Bake until bread is brown and crusty and a toothpick or knife comes out clean. It will take about 2 hours. Cool slighty and remove from pan. It will slice more easily if you allow it to cool completely but it is hard to resist this bread while it is still warm!

Steps:

• Pour hot tea over currants and raisins in a bowl; soak 8 hours to overnight.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
• Grease a sheet of parchment paper and use it to line a 2-pound loaf pan.
• Stir demerara sugar into tea and fruit mixture until dissolved completely.
• Mix flour and egg into the tea and fruit mixture until completely integrated into a batter.
• Spread batter evenly into the prepared bread pan.
• Bake in preheated oven until golden-brown, about 40 minutes. Cool in the bread pan 5 minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely.