Homemade barmbrack and other recipes for a perfect Halloween

WHEN I was small, my father would select a turnip – as large and perfectly-shaped as he could find, and take it, along with a sharp knife, over to the kitchen sink. There he would carve it into a Halloween lantern – hacking away at the turnip’s granite-like interior, until it was hollowed out with eyes, before putting a lit candle inside. My mother would make a bairín breac or barm-brack, which we would have in large thick slices, laden with butter, for our tea on Halloween night. Inside the brack were various items wrapped in baking paper – a pea, which meant you wouldn’t marry that year, which was no load to an eight-year-old, though you weren’t too impressed if you got that one, a coin which meant you’d be rich as Croesus when you grew and a gold ring which for some reason was the Big Kahuna. 

Whoever got the ring would swank around shoving it in everybody’s faces. We all blithely overlooked the fact that getting the ring meant you’d be getting married within the year. Ridiculous!

There was no such thing as buying a ready-made shop costume - there were no readymade costumes for sale then. At least not for the offspring of large rural, cash-strapped families. Instead everybody pulled old hats, bits and pieces of mis-matched clothing out of wardrobes and worn bedsheets out of the bed-linen press to turn themselves, with the help of big sisters and mothers, into ghosts and witches and murderers.

Another thing; in our Halloween tradition of the 1970’s and 80’s, the idea was to give a bit of added value, so when you turned up at somebody’s door in full costume, you didn’t shout “Trick or Treat” at the householder. 

You offered to perform a verse of a song or a short poem on the doorstep. This generally brought an even wider, warmer smile and lots more sweets.

Back home with our swag, we gobbled our sweets and played Halloween games. Snap Apple was a big favourite. Each of us was spun around a few times and then brought to a stop. The task was to catch the apple dangling from the ceiling on a string with just one bite. This is a lot harder than it sounds.

Another favourite was Bobbing for Apples. The thing we liked very much about this game was that it made lots of mess involving as it did a full basin of water, floating apples and competitive, energetic children. 

Players had to line up to try to catch one of the floaters using their teeth and place it on the table. Then we’d tell ghost stories.

When I grew up and had a family, I found that the turnip was a nightmare to carve – I don’t know how my father did it, so instead we bought the pumpkins, which had begun appearing on shop shelves. These were far easier to hollow out than a turnip. Once the eyes had been cut out and a candle inserted into the empty shell, I made a simple pumpkin soup with the insides, which we ate on Halloween night with homemade barmbrack.

Here’s the recipe for Pumpkin Soup I made:

Ingredients

Olive oil

Two chopped onions,

A chopped carrot

The inside of a pumpkin de seeded and chopped

About a litre of vegetable stock and 150ml of double cream.

Method:

• Heat the oil and sauté the onion until it’s gone soft.
• Add the carrot and the pumpkin and cook that for about 10 minutes until it softens and turn golden.
• Add your stock and simmer the mixture, slowly bringing it to the boil.
• Add some salt and pepper and allow it to simmer until the pumpkin and carrot are very soft.
• Puree with a hand blender, return it to a low heat and add in your cream. Gorgeous!

There’s also a snobbier, Jamie Oliver version which I tried once or twice and is very good too. You need:

The pumpkin

Two shallots

75g ginger

Half a tablespoon of chilli powder, some olive oil (extra-virgin, it being Jamie)

About 125g of coconut milk

A litre of vegetable stock.

Method:

• Sauté the pumpkin, shallots and ginger in the oil until they’re soft. Add the stock, coconut milk and chilli powder.
• Season with salt and pepper, bring slowly to the boil and simmer for 40 minutes.
• Finally, here’s my Halloween Barmbrack recipe – ideally bake this a few days beforehand and let it sit, which is great because you can do it the previous weekend when you have time. One thing: this mixture has to be soaked overnight the night before you start to bake.

Ingredients

8oz or 225g of self-raising flower

12oz or 350 g of good quality mixed dried fruit

Half a pint or 300ml of cold tea or more if you think you need it

4oz or 125 g of Golden Caster Sugar

A beaten egg, a pinch of mixed spice and whatever charms (coin, ring, stick etc as above) you want to put into the cake. Wrap these individually in greaseproof paper.

Honey for decoration.

Method:

• Put the fruit to soak in the cold tea and a bit of brandy if you fancy it, in a big mixing bowl overnight.
• Next day mix in the sugar, egg, flour and mixed spice as well as your wrapped charms into this bowl.
• Transfer the mixture to a greased cake tin lined with greaseproof paper.
• Bake in a preheated over at around 170 degrees or Gas Mark 3 for around an hour until the brack has risen and is firm to the touch.
• Let it cool on a wire tray.
• Ideally, the brack should be wrapped in greaseproof paper and kept for two days or more before cutting.
• Just before serving, brush melted honey over the top.
• Happy Halloween!