Recipes with currants

Irish barmbrack is a traditional yeasted fruit bread studded with raisins, currants, allspice, and lemon zest. Soft, lightly sweet loaves often baked for Halloween and All Saints' Day.

Turkish eggplant pilaf cooked in olive oil with pine nuts, currants, cinnamon, allspice, tomatoes, and a full cup of fresh dill. A traditional zeytinyagli dish served cold as a vegetarian main or mezze.

A rich Mexican mole sauce with unsweetened chocolate, almonds, pumpkin seeds, hot salsa, tomatoes, currants, and warm spices poured over browned turkey pieces. This homemade turkey mole is a labor of love that feeds a crowd.

Austrian Gugelhupf is a buttery yeasted bundt cake studded with raisins, currants, and orange zest, crowned with blanched almonds and a snowy dusting of powdered sugar. A Viennese coffee house classic.

Hand-rolled Greek stuffed grape leaves filled with seasoned beef or lamb, rice, currants, pine nuts, and mint. Simmered until tender and served with a classic avgolemono egg-lemon sauce. Makes 60.

Cape Cod cranberry-blueberry crisp with maple syrup, oat-almond topping, and whole wheat flour. A naturally sweetened, butter-free fruit dessert bursting with tart berry flavor.

No Christmas feast in medieval times was complete without a 'grete pye'. In some recipes, it could contain many varied meats, but quite often only two or three different kinds were suggested; change the meats suggested here if you wish.

English cheese pie with sieved cottage cheese, cream sherry, rosewater, and currants in a from-scratch butter pastry crust. A fragrant Tudor-era custard dessert.

Christmas carrot pudding steams grated carrots and potatoes with breadcrumbs, raisins, suet and warm spices into a moist British holiday pudding served with brown sugar sauce.

Scottish hot cross buns with currants, candied citron, allspice, nutmeg, and cinnamon, finished with a sweet milk glaze. Traditional Easter baking with a Scottish twist on the classic.

Moist spiced zucchini cake with crushed pineapple, walnuts, currants, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Topped with an almond-lemon cream cheese frosting. A garden-to-dessert stunner.

From a manuscript in the British Library known as Harleian 479, dating from around 1420; recipe adapted.

Old-fashioned mincemeat pie with ground caribou, apple cider, raisins, currants, and warm spices, spiked with brandy. A lattice-topped holiday classic with a wild game twist.

Authentic Victorian mincemeat with boiled calf's tongue, suet, dried fruit, candied citrus peel, brandy, and whiskey. Cures in a crock for 7 weeks before becoming Christmas pie filling. Yields 96 servings.

Traditional Welsh currant bread (Bara Brith) with sultanas, candied peel, brown sugar, and pudding spice. A slow-risen fruit loaf that bakes into a dense, richly spiced slice.

Treat your kids to this rich and scrumptious dessert that will make them eager to help you the next time you go to make them!