barm cake

[sambro]

since when as a barm cake been known as a muffin? I went to a rare visit to the chippy last week and asked for a chip barm cake,i was asked do you mean a chip muffin? no i said, a muffin is a sweet thing with chocolate chips in!!

[Branocophile]

Barm (great word -should be used more often!) is an old word for yeast. In the olden days, in Britain, the muffin man used to sell round baked yeast rolls - The sweet muffins you're thinking of are what they call cup cakes in the US and Canada.
In the States they call your barm cakes 'English muffins'. So 'barm' and 'muffin' are correct. It's our cousins over the water that have got it wrong.

[spudqueen]

Depends on where you live, in Lancashire they are barm cakes.

[Branocophile]

Sorry, just re-read what I wrote before> I meant in the States they call, cup cakes muffins. I was trying to make the point that these buns are called barm and muffin -both words are right and like you say, spudqueen, it depends where you live. It's a pity, sambro, your local chippy doesn't use the local lingo. -Oh and I'm from Lancashire too!

[Whickerman]

Barm Brack is very widely known here in Ireland - and with good reason. It's bloody gorgeous!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barmbrack

[figure]

In A Pickle - Hope this explains it for you.

[Tichfield]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barm_cake

[shaneystar2]

I always thought a barm cake is what we in the south call a Bap .And a muffin is something you split and toast and have butter and jam on ..This gets more confusing by the minute :))