The Kitchen Magicians

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Irish Soda Bread Baking Dish
Get this beautiful Grasslands Road Irish Soda Bread stoneware pan that comes with the recipe! A wonderful gift for a loved one or for yourself.
Are You the Lucky Gal Whose Fella is Cooking for You on Valentine's Day?
Get him this apron for being such a sweet guy (and handy, too.)

Silicone Bundt Pan

Never worry about your cakes falling apart and sticking to the pan ever again. $15.99
A Barmbrack Recipe
Barmbrack
Makes 1 (9-inch) cake.
Brambrack is delicious toasted and smeared with butter. Brushing the just-baked cake with honey gives it extra shine and sweetness.
Ingredients
1 1/3 cups firmly packed brown sugar
2 cups plus 4 teaspoons hot strong-brewed black Irish breakfast tea *use 2 teabags to get extra-strong flavor.
1 ¼ cups dried cherries
1 cup raisins
1 cup golden raisins
¼ cup candied citrus peel.
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder.
1 teaspoon mixed spice or pumpkin spice
½ teaspoon kosher salt
2 large eggs, lightly beaten.
2 tablespoons honey
Unsalted butter and honey to serve.


Directions
1. in a medium bowl, place brown sugar.
pour hot tea over sugar and stir until sugar is completely melted. Add cherries, raisins, golden raisins, and citrus peel, stirring to combine. Cover with a piece of plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature overnight to soak.
2. Preheat oven to 325° F. Butter a tall-sided 9-inch round cake pan or springform pan, line bottom of pan with parchment paper.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, spice, and salt. Gradually add fruit mixture to flour mixture alternately with eggs. Stir until well combined and o dry streaks remain. *(See Note) Pour batter into prepared pan.
4. Bake until golden and a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, 1 hour and 20 minutes to 1 hour and 30 minutes, covering with foil after 1 hour of baking to prevent excess browning. Let cool in pan for 20 minutes. Remove from pan, and place on a wire rack. Using a pastry brush, brush honey onto warm cake. Let cool completely. Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week. Serve with butter and honey.

Note: if you want to include a trinket in your barmbrack, wrap it in parchment, and add it to the batter before pouring the batter into the pan.

What is Barmbrack?
Barmbrack, also known as tea brack or just called “brack” for short, is synonymous with Ireland. It’s not a rich cake, but more like a sweet quick bread-like cake with a scattering of dried fruit like raisins, sultanas, and currents and warm spices. The Irish term for this, bairin breac, means “speckled bread,” indicating that the fruit was scarce in the loaf.
Those weren’t the only thing that classically goes inside of it. A fortune-telling tradition that continues today is the inclusion of symbolic charms baked into the bread, meant to indicate the different fortunes of the recipient. Traditional charms include a pea, a piece of cloth, a coin, (originally a silver sixpence) and a ring. A dried pea means the person will not marry, a piece of cloth symbolizes the person will be poor, a coin means the person will enjoy good fortune, and a ring, which is most common today, means the person will be married within the year. The person who gets the ring is meant to place it under their pillow and they will dream of the person they will marry. It is worth mentioning that this tradition goes as far back as the Druids in Ireland. At New Year’s, people throw bits of brack out the back door of their home to ward off poverty in the coming year.

Brewed black tea is a key component in barmbrack, so raid your stash of Irish tea to soak the fruit in for the base of this recipe. It will add a deep flavor and color to the cake. The recipe below is a combination of an old recipe with some bold new flavors, just how new traditions are made!

Smeared with Irish butter and served with a cup of tea, you are halfway to heaven. Ponder this as you enjoy, “You wouldn’t call the queen your aunt.” Translation, you are so content after eating your barmbrack that even becoming royalty wouldn’t make the moment better.


Reusable Silicone Muffin Cups

We've used them for muffins, cupcakes, tart shells... always easy to release and so much better for the environment because you can reuse them forever. No papers to toss! $14.88 for 24