Halloween Brack

A Halloween Brack is essentially a tea brack with other mixed fruit and a wrapped up copper ring baked in the cake.
This is just a Irish tradition and its not imperative to the recipe just a bit of fun.

Making this Brack brought back memories of my mum telling me stories of halloween when she was a little girl growing up in the North Side Cork City. When my great grandmother would make Brack there wouldnt always be a ring inside like nowadays but sometimes there would be a rag which meant you were destined for poverty!
Or a stick which meant you would have a hard life or your husband would beat you. If you were lucky enough to get a dried bean this meant prosperity. The ring of course meant marriage.
I find this very funny as mum said it was all in fun of Halloween and never taken seriously but if your friends and siblings saw you find a rag or stick you would be teased for the whole day.
I don't know was that tradition just a North side thing or general Cork as my great granny was from Bantry in West Cork but either way I just love the story as I think it really represents the humour people had back then even when people probably didn't have much.

Had to use Barry's tea however if your not a Barry's tea lover ill begrudgingly let you use any tea you wish.
Serve with lashings of real butter
This brack makes one 2lb loaf

Preparation time: 1 day for soaking fruit.
10 minutes for weighing up and mixing
Cooking time: 1 hour plus cooling.
Freezes very well.

Pre -heat oven 170oc

Ingredients:

3 tea bags soaked in 300ml of boiling water.
375g mixed fruit
225g selfraising flour
125g caster sugar
1tsp mixed spice
50g soft butter
1 large egg
One copper ring wrapped in baking parchment (optional all good baking shops supply them).
Apricot glaze to finished (optional)

Method:
Soak fruit in tea over night or as long as you can.
Mix flour,sugar,mixed spice together
Rub in the soft butter until the mix resembles bread crumbs
Add egg mix
Add the tea and fruit mix (discard tea bags)
Stir until well combined
Pop the wrapped up ring somewhere in cake.
Spoon in greased and line loaf tin.
Cook for one hour.
Cool on a wire rack.
It doesn't rise that much as the fruit weighs it down. So don't worry if it doesn't double in size.

Happy Halloween !!!