When I was a child chain-letters were very popular but having had the process explained to me I never had anything to do with them except for once when my mother was the recipient of a recipe chain-letter. We decided that you couldn’t go far wrong with that and took a chance. In the event I think that we only gained two recipes out of it but they were both very good recipes that I and my mother used for years.
This is one of them.
It was titled “Bara Brith”. Now ‘bara brith’ is Welsh for ‘speckled bread’ and although you might think that that means yeast my researches have revealed that there are many many recipes and although some use yeast and some, especially from North Wales, involve soaking the dried fruit in tea, there is in fact almost as many recipes as people.
However that maybe it is a very easy tasty cake that keeps well.
The recipe said to make it in a 10″ x 6″ tin (25 x 15 cm for those who think in metric). I think that my tin is slightly larger but any tin with about this surface area will do.
I start by lining the tin with greased greaseproof paper.
The recipe as most of my recipes is in imperial measurements but I have given a usable metric equivalent.
I then take
8oz (225g) self-raising flour and
4oz (110g) of margarine or butter and rub the fat into the flour in the normal way.
To this I add
4oz (110g) of caster sugar and
6oz (170g) mixed dried fruit.
Mix well.
You then add in the other ingredients. This time I mixed them together first but it isn’t necessary to do it this way.
This is
2 eggs
3 tablespoons of milk
1 desertspoon of golden syrup
1 desertspoon of marmalade
I think it is the marmalade that creates the especially yummy flavour.
Mix together well and spread in tin.
The original recipe said 1 hour at 325 deg F.
I use a fan oven and I find that at 140-150 deg C it only takes about 40 -50 minutes.
When cooked it should look like this and spring back when you touch it.
Remove from the tin after a couple of minutes and leave to cool on a rack.
Cut in pieces as you wish.
I cut mine in rectangles but you could cut it in squares if you prefer.
Great post with interesting content.
Can’t wait to see more!
Keep up the good work!
Best wishes, R
http://ramonacrisstea.com
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Love a bara brith but have never made one, yours looks very tasty.
I did a postcard chain letter as a child with about as much success!
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Terrible thing chain letters. Like pyramid selling. The people at the top of the chain get ‘rich’ while those at the end get nothing. Most of the ones when I was a child were about sending unused stamps.
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I had a chain letter which was to send a pair of knickers to the people in the chain, you had to put your size on your letter! As a teen there was no way….
My Bara Brith recipe soaked the fruit in tea.
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Ha, Ha! re the pants chain letter story. Hard to believe anyone would set that up. Do you drain the tea off when you make your Bara Brith? My mother had a cake where you soaked the fruit in tea once but it didn’t say to drain the fruit just to add the other ingredients and the cake was wet and horrid. We never tried it again.
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I think it was the just the right amount to soak into the fruit to plump them up but not make a soggy cake. Same as Nigella’s tea loaf type of thing, (recommended with strong earl grey.)
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Maybe I should try again some day.
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Sounds delicious apart from the fact that I don’t like dried fruit! Do you think I could substitute with chocolate chips?
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I am not sure but it is worth a try. I like ‘chocolate oranges’ so the chocolate should compliment the orange flavour introduced by the marmalade. Maybe I should try!
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Lovely recipe, I’m in fits of giggles about the pants chain letter 🙂
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Yes! very funny.
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Yum. I’ll take mine warm with lots of butter, please. xx
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Rather a long way to send. Would be cold by the time it got to you!
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Looks amazing! Will definitely be trying this one. Emma x
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very easy! hope you like it.
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