“Travels” in Wales

Considering that the last three posts were Scotland, Ireland, and England, it seemed like I should include a Wales post before moving on from the British Isles. Unfortunately, I have not yet been to Wales, so I do not have any personal stories about amazing meals or memorable walks/scenery.

I did once have a project with someone from Wales who introduced me to Penderyn Whisky, and I then extended the favor of the introduction to some whisky drinking friends. The symbol on the Penderyn bottles is pretty easy to spot – it’s the Welsh Dragon.

When I went looking for recipes from Wales, the first thing to come up was Welsh Rarebit. I am all for bread with cheese sauce, but I continued my search from there, and came across various recipes for Bara brith, which, if the sources I found are accurate, literally means “mottled” or “speckled” bread. This seemed like the perfect recipe to use up some of the dried fruit that was left over after the Christmas baking.

The recipes I found generally just called for dried “mixed fruit”, and if they specified the type of fruit, they usually said currants, raisins, sultanas, and sometimes candied citrus. My guess is that you can use whatever it is you have around. I happened to have some dried cherries, so I used those, but I would suggest using whatever you have. I think I might also add a bit of lemon zest the next time around to give it a little zip, particularly if not using candied citrus. Note, the fruit soaks overnight in tea before you make the bread.

Most of the recipes I found called for self-raising flour, and there were a few that called for yeast. I liked the sound of the self-raising flour recipes, but I never have that on hand, so the recipe below basically calls for the ingredients of homemade self-raising flour. I will note though that if you search for self-raising flour substitutes, there is a broad range of amounts of baking powder powder per cup of all purpose flour. The batter was quite stiff, which might have been, in part, because I did not use the self-raising flour.

I make no representation that this recipe is even remotely authentic. It is inspired by various recipes for Bara brith that I found in my searches, but is also very much driven by the ingredients that I had in my kitchen. Despite it being a first try, I was quite happy with the result, although I have no idea if the result is “right.” This is a bit like fruitcake, although without the strong alcohol flavor. Of course, I might add some whisky to the tea soak next time.

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