In honour of St. Patrick’s day I decided make a traditional Irish Barm Brack (fruit bread) with a sourdough starter. This recipe makes a perfect loaf of brack. It is soft and sweet, with a flavour of cinnamon raisin. The sourdough adds to the depth of character, creating a bread that is perfect when served with butter next to a cup of tea. We also love to eat it toasted with butter.
PrintBarm Brack
This recipe is for a perfect loaf of barm brack -Irish raisin bread. It is soft and sweet, with a flavour of cinnamon raisin and sourdough bread!
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
- Yield: 2 loaves 1x
- Category: Bread
- Method: Sourdough
- Cuisine: Irish
Scale
Ingredients
Initial Starter:
- Sourdough starter (1¼ oz or 5 tbsp)
- White flour (6 oz or 1 1/3 cup)
- Warm water (5 oz or ⅔ cups)
Main Dough:
- Strong white flour (28 oz or 6 1/4 cups)
- Warm milk (22 oz or 2¾ cups)
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp instant yeast
- 6 tbsp soft butter (not melted)
- 2 cups mixed dried fruit (raisins, currents, apricots)
Instructions
- Start with an initial feed of your starter. Warm 5 oz of water (approx 29-32 C / 84-90 F). Mix with the sourdough starter and starter flour, cover with a towel and leave at room temperature for 6-8 hours.
- Warm the milk (approx. 32-35 C / 90-95 F), and mix with the remaining flour. Leave the flour to hydrate for 15-30 minutes.
- Mix in the remaining ingredients, including the initial starter, the dried fruit and butter using the pincer method.
- Allow to rise in a warm location until doubled in volume (about 5 hours). Use the dough folding procedure 3-4 times during this rise.
- Place the dough on a well floured surface and cut into 2 equal pieces.
- Gently shape the dough into a ball, using flour as needed, but avoid kneeding.
- Place the dough balls in floured baskets (or bowls lined with floured tea towels), then cover with an airtight cover and leave it in the refrigerator overnight).
- Preheat to 400 F (200 C).
- Place loafs in a tin loaf pan, 8 ” cake pan or dutch oven and brush the tops with milk.
- Bake for 25 minutes uncovered, then reduce the heat to 350 F (180 C). Cover the loaves with tinfoil and bake for 45 minutes (until it sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom).
- Cool on a rack before slicing.
Notes
- I used an 8″ cake pan
, and a dutch oven
, but if you don’t have either of those you could use a loaf pan
or a pie plate
. However, the cold dough is going into a hot oven, so I wouldn’t use a glass dish.
, and a 
, but if you don’t have either of those you could use a loaf pan
or a pie plate
. However, the cold dough is going into a hot oven, so I wouldn’t use a glass dish.Keywords: bram brack, raisin bread, traditional
Getting the milk warmed up just right seemed tricky, so I added boiling water to warm it up quickly.Makes brilliant toast!
★★★★★