In many areas of Ireland, it was traditional to bake a large barmbrack on New Year's Eve by the woman of the house. As nightfall approached, three bites would be taken out of the cake by the man of the house and thrown against the front door while invoking the Holy Spirit. This was to ward off poverty or starvation. After an invocation, the family would gather and eat the fragments of cake. In a variant of this tradition from west County Limerick, the door was struck three times with the cake with a different recitation.
Irish cake on Halloween.