Muffin or Barm

[scotty123]

I'm certainly not gonna read over 700 pages but does opinion differ as to where you live? I've always lived in manc and it's always been a chip barm, bacon barm etc, all the kids at school used to say barm, my mum called it a barm when and where did it become a muffin? I appreciate other regions use different terms blooming tea cake for instance in Yorkshire (just wrong)

Well done, you have just settled it
Barm

 

[Carver]

Barms were made with dough made using beer froth, similar to this bread:

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/food/2011/07/the-ale-barm-method-worthy-of.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/food/2011/07 ... y-of.shtml</a>

Muffins were made using left over bread dough from yeasted bread, which would have been made with a sourdough starter even at the beginning of the industrial revolution then with commercial yeast from around the turn of the 19th century.

Once yeast was available commercially and available in blocks from 1825 and more widely available from 1867 it became too much of a faff to make bread using the barm method. So the recipes were altered to have yeast in them and barms , in effect, became a different, lighter textured variety of muffin.
You can still make barms with beer froth, however they are rarely available commercially. Those things that are sold as barms are a lighter form of MUFFIN. Sotoday's excuse for a barm is actually a MUFFIN and MUFFINS are never barms.

Also: Bread types made with Barm has it's origin in Celtic peoples, hence 'barm brack' in Ireland. Sourdough was introduced by the Romans.

barm mortuus est, vivat muffin

(the barm is dead, long live the MUFFIN)

 

[metalblue]

Ponder that New Years day used to be the 31st March in the UK yet even though the "recipe" has changed to the 1st January we still call it New Years day.

Or that February used to have 30 days, but yet we still call it February.

In short the mere fact you think it's a muffin negates your argument entirely.

 

[BlueBearBoots]

or - Barm or barm cake or Flour cake - a flat, often floured, savoury, small bread made using a natural leaven including mashed hops to stop it souring; a term often used in Manchester, Liverpool, and South Lancashire (unashamedly lifted from Wiki - and as you know wiki is ALWAYS right )

and -

An English muffin is a small, round, flat (or thin) type of yeast-leavened bread which is commonly served split horizontally, toasted, and buttered.[1] They are commonly eaten in the United States and the rest of the English-speaking world.

The term "English muffin" is most commonly used in North America to distinguish between this savory bread and the more common sweet cake-like muffin, which are sometimes known as "American muffins".


I stand by my argument that "muffin" became a widely used word only when McDonalds became popular over here and fairy cakes got bigger and the American term of muffin was used for them too!

 

[BoyBlue_1985]

Strange times in my family as my Dad calls it a Barm but my Uncle calls it a Muffin but im led to believe that this is from 30 years living in Tameside on my Uncles part while my Dad left Manchester when he was 16 after living in Chorlton most of the time he was there, as my Grandma always called it a Barm I have always called it that

 

[mancityvstoke]

As it would take so long to read all 769 pages, please could someone post a summary of the thread so far, to bring me up to speed?

yeah Its a muffin

end of thread.

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

Barms were made with dough made using beer froth, similar to this bread:

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/food/2011/07/the-ale-barm-method-worthy-of.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/food/2011/07 ... y-of.shtml</a>

Muffins were made using left over bread dough from yeasted bread, which would have been made with a sourdough starter even at the beginning of the industrial revolution then with commercial yeast from around the turn of the 19th century.

Once yeast was available commercially and available in blocks from 1825 and more widely available from 1867 it became too much of a faff to make bread using the barm method. So the recipes were altered to have yeast in them and barms , in effect, became a different, lighter textured variety of muffin.
You can still make barms with beer froth, however they are rarely available commercially. Those things that are sold as barms are a lighter form of MUFFIN. Sotoday's excuse for a barm is actually a MUFFIN and MUFFINS are never barms.

Also: Bread types made with Barm has it's origin in Celtic peoples, hence 'barm brack' in Ireland. Sourdough was introduced by the Romans.

barm mortuus est, vivat muffin

(the barm is dead, long live the MUFFIN)

'Twas strangled at birth!

 

[BufordUSABlue]

Jeeeeezz

You go away for 387 pages and the Muffin Mules have made a comeback...

ITS A BARM - NOW GET OVER IT!!

 

[scotty123]

Strange times in my family as my Dad calls it a Barm but my Uncle calls it a Muffin but im led to believe that this is from 30 years living in Tameside on my Uncles part while my Dad left Manchester when he was 16 after living in Chorlton most of the time he was there, as my Grandma always called it a Barm I have always called it that

This could be an age thing seems like us older posters call it a Barm, and older relatives of younger posters call it a Barm
Youngsters through the fast food outlets like Burger King etc tend to call it a muffin which is an Americanism
BARM

 

[RP2]

I'm not being funny, but it's definitely a barm.

Muffins are pompous.