St. Patrick's Day ~ Irish Soda Bread

How do you like your Irish Soda Bread? With carraway seeds or without? I prefer without because I feel that the carraway seeds take away from the flavor of the bread, which by itself is delicious. I was really excited to make Irish Soda Bread for St. Patrick's Day. Irish Soda Bread is a traditional bread that uses baking soda for rising rather than yeast and it's usually filled with raisins or currants. I decided to make mine with raisins, orange zest and no carraway seeds. The result? Delicious! It's even more delicious when you take a slice, toast it and add some butter (and a dash of salt) to it. Mmm... I really hope you take an opportunity to make your own Irish Soda Bread for St. Patrick's Day! It's well worth the effort.

Ingredients:

4 cups of flour
4 heaping teaspoons of sugar
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1-1/2 teaspoons of salt

4 tablespoons of cold butter diced

1 egg beaten
1-3/4 cups of cold buttermilk
orange zest (to taste)

1 cup of plump raisins (don't get the boxed ones)
1 tablespoon of flour

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Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Dust your raisins with the flour. Set aside.

Mix all your dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Again, for you baking snobs you can sift to your hearts' content.

Chop up your butter and add it to the dry ingredients. Get your hands in there and smush the pieces of butter with your fingers.

Add your buttermilk, egg and orange zest and with a large spatula, incorporate the wet ingredients into the dry. Then take a handheld mixer and at a low speed, incorporate the ingredients thoroughly. Add the raisins and work into the dough with your hands. Your hands will get sticky so you can dust them with flour beforehand to make this process easier.

Scoop out the dough and lay it out on a well-floured surface. Knead the dough and dust it with flour as you go. Knead it until it forms a nice lump that you can form into a round, but flat ball of dough. Make sure not to over-knead.

Add your round and flat dough ball to a greased baking sheet. With a knife, cut an X on the top of the bread. This will help create a nice surface as it bakes.

Bake in your preheated oven for 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle (not the sides please!) comes out clean. It's good to eat while hot with some butter but is just as delicious when eaten at room temperature.

Irish Soda Bread

Sunday Roundup ~ March 14th, 2010 St. Patrick's Day Edition

Top o' the morning to ya! There are lots of treats on the net, just in time for St. Patrick's Day!

Beef & Guinness Pie ~ Epicurious
Champ ~ Epicurious
Irish Cheddar and Stout Fondue ~ Epicurious
Corned Beef and Cabbage Pizza ~ Food Network
Layered Cabbage Casserole ~ Kraft Foods
Bit-of-Irish Cheesecake ~ Kraft Foods
New Potatoes in Dill Cream Sauce ~ Kraft Foods
Liam Neeson's "Glens of Antrim" Irish Stew
Collection of St. Patrick's Day friendly recipes

St. Patrick's Day ~ Irish Lamb Stew

Lamb and I are not friends. The first time I ever attempted to cook a leg of lamb, I overcooked it, it shrunk considerably, was barely edible and my home reeked of lamb for a good straight week. I have attempted grilled and broiled lamb chops but to no avail. I just can't seem to get it right.

Lucky for me, this Irish Lamb Stew recipe from Healthy Eats is so simple that I couldn't possibly mess it up. In fact, I simplified it even more by using pre-cut Lamb stew chunks insteading of processing a big piece of lamb myself. In the early morning, I processed all the vegetables and threw everything in a crockpot and later that evening I had delicious Irish Lamb Stew. Can't get easier than that.

Ingredients:

2 pounds of lamb chunks for stew

5 yukon gold potatoes peeled and cut into 1 inch chunks

3 celery stalks and celery leaves sliced

3 carrots peeled and cut into 1 inch chunks

2 leeks sliced

2 cups of chicken broth

thyme leaves

salt and pepper to taste

parsley or chives to garnish

You'll need a crockpot/slow cooker for this recipe. Set it at 8 hours or at the lowest heat setting.

Process your leeks by removing the other piece, rinsing the stalks, slicing them down the middle then slicing them across until you get half-moon slices. Add the slices to a bowl of cold water and swish them around with your hands, separating the slices with your fingers. This will help get the grit out.

Peel and chop your potatoes and carrots into one inch chunks. Slice your celery. Season your lamb chunks with salt and pepper. Add to your crockpot.

Add your 2 cups of chicken broth and your thyme leaves. Stir.

Cook for 8 hours in your crockpot. If you have time to stir, do so every couple of hours. It's not absolutely necessary though but it does help distribute the heat.

Garnish with chives and enjoy with a nice slice of Irish Soda Bread.

 

Next up: Irish Soda Bread (after the Sunday Roundup)

St. Patrick's Day ~ Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes

This is the first of three entries I'm doing in preparation for St. Patrick's Day which is nigh on our heels. I really wanted to make homemade Irish Soda bread so I decided to accompany the bread with other Irish-based fare.

This recipe is based on Dave Lieberman's Chocolate Stout Cupcakes. I pretty much kept the original recipe with the slight change of reducing the sugar content and not making the frosting. If you think you would like cream cheese frosting on these, go for it! I didn't have powdered sugar available, otherwise I would have made a nice glaze with sugar and Guinness.

Ingredients:
3/4 cup of cocoa powder
2 cups of flour
1-1/2 cups of sugar
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1/4 teaspoon of salt

1 14.9 oz Can of Guinness
1 stick of butter, melted and cooled
1 tablespoon of vanilla
3 eggs beaten
3/4 cup of sour cream

This recipe makes 24 cupcakes


Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl. If you are a baking snob, sift your dry ingredients together.

In a separate medium bowl beat your 3 eggs, add sour cream, vanilla and Guinness and incorporate. Then slowly pour in the melted but cooled butter. Mix.

Add the wet ingredients little by litte to the dry and incoporate. On a low setting, take a handheld blender and mix the batter thoroughly. Be careful because this batter is very wet and will splatter everywhere.

Grease 2 muffin tins or line them with cupcake liners. Fill until the batter reaches the top barely. This batter won't puff up very much so it's important to fill as much as possible.

Bake in the oven for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool.

Next up: Irish Lamb Stew