Check Out This Fortune Telling Cake for Halloween!
"Candy!" is generally the first thing that springs to mind when thinking of Halloween, but a traditional Irish fortune-telling cake is more accurate.
We all know that Halloween is the modern-day celebration of the ancient Celtic holiday of Samhaim (pronounced Sow-in). It was originally celebrated as the time of year when the veil between the living and the dead was at its thinnest. This led to all sorts of fortune-telling and divination methods in hopes of learning about the future.
Thus enters the barmbrack. This simple fruit bread is the delicious ancestor of the questionable fruit cakes of today. The fun part about this bread though, has nothing to do with its taste or appearance, but what it has inside.
Particular "charms" are wrapped in parchment paper, evenly distributed, and baked inside. Traditionally, the items include a coin, ring, thimble, button, and scrap of cloth.
The cake is then divided and whatever charm you had in your piece was your fortune. The coin symbolizes riches ahead, the ring is marriage within the year, thimble is for a woman who will never marry, button for a lifelong bachelor, and scrap of cloth means poverty in the near future.
If you're planning a Halloween party, this could be a really fun addition. (Just be sure to warn your guests, no one wants to choke on a thimble.)
Here's a great recipe courtesy of recipetips.com : http://m.recipetips.com/recipe-cards/t--2348/barm-brack-bread.asp
For other Halloween party recipes, check this out: http://alacuisinellc.blogspot.com/2016/10/having-halloween-party-heres-must-have.html?m=1
Have you ever eaten barmbrack? What do you think of the tradition?
Don't forget to subscribe to receive all of the relevant news when it comes to food.
We all know that Halloween is the modern-day celebration of the ancient Celtic holiday of Samhaim (pronounced Sow-in). It was originally celebrated as the time of year when the veil between the living and the dead was at its thinnest. This led to all sorts of fortune-telling and divination methods in hopes of learning about the future.
Thus enters the barmbrack. This simple fruit bread is the delicious ancestor of the questionable fruit cakes of today. The fun part about this bread though, has nothing to do with its taste or appearance, but what it has inside.
Particular "charms" are wrapped in parchment paper, evenly distributed, and baked inside. Traditionally, the items include a coin, ring, thimble, button, and scrap of cloth.
The cake is then divided and whatever charm you had in your piece was your fortune. The coin symbolizes riches ahead, the ring is marriage within the year, thimble is for a woman who will never marry, button for a lifelong bachelor, and scrap of cloth means poverty in the near future.
Here's a great recipe courtesy of recipetips.com : http://m.recipetips.com/recipe-cards/t--2348/barm-brack-bread.asp
For other Halloween party recipes, check this out: http://alacuisinellc.blogspot.com/2016/10/having-halloween-party-heres-must-have.html?m=1
Have you ever eaten barmbrack? What do you think of the tradition?
Don't forget to subscribe to receive all of the relevant news when it comes to food.
I've made this before ... it's is VERY fun... but you need to tell people about the "surprise" !!!
ReplyDeleteGreat treat.. thanks for sharing!