Many of my Irish friends grew up carving turnips to ward off evil spirits at Halloween because pumpkins were not readily available in Ireland until recently. While they didn’t have pumpkins, they did ...

Ireland has some spooktacular Halloween traditions and one of our favorites has always been the anticipation of who will get the ring in the traditional Barmbrack bread. Barmbrack is a fruit-filled ...

You may know about the plastic baby Jesus in the Mardi Gras king cake, but did you know that there’s an ancient history behind hiding symbolic trinkets in baked goods? Special-occasion breads (think ...

Everyone must get a slice of Irish Halloween barmbrack to see what the future holds – weddings, spinsterhood, or poverty!? Fun. Halloween, celebrated on October 31, is one of those authentic Celtic ...

It is time for Barmbrack to grace bread bins and cupboards across the country yet again, and like Halloween itself, the cake has roots in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. The fortune-telling ...

When the boss gently hints that you should do something, it’s prudent to pay attention. Fortunately, the gentle hint I recently received was regarding sharing a recipe for Irish food, so I’m all in. I ...

Barmbrack is a traditional Irish sweetened bread not dissimilar to the Welsh bara brith. In Gaelic it’s known as báirín breac, or ‘speckled loaf’, due to the way the dough is dotted with raisins. When ...

A zombie enjoys a bite of pan de muertos at a Day of the Dead celebration in Atlanta, Georgia. ERIK S. LESSER/epa/Corbis The history of Halloween can be traced back to Samhain, an old Gaelic festival ...