Lincolnshire Plum Bread, Lincolnshire
Served today as a breakfast bread, or with tea, this regional speciality probably dates back many centuries, the clue being the use of the word plum to describe the dried fruits used in the product.
It's not just plum‚ that's sometimes a misnomer - it is in some recipes not strictly speaking bread, more of a cake made without the use of yeast, though yeast is traditional. It contains a great deal of dried fruit (which can be flavoured and plumped moistly by soaking in strong black tea) and plenty of allspice and cinnamon, and is sweetened with sugar (often brown), golden syrup or molasses, and enriched with eggs.
Lincolnshire is pig country, as anyone touring there away from the main roads will find before long. The most traditional version of the plum bread is made with lard, but for various reasons that king of fats has fallen out of favour, so versions made with margarine and butter are more likely to be encountered, which is a pity, the denser lard-enhanced version is proper trencherman stuff.
Bakers in the county are campaigning for their product to be given protection as a regional and traditional speciality, preventing bastardised versions and product made outside the area benefitting from its renown.
Myers Bakery in Horncastle is especially famed for its version, so esteemed that BA have used it.
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