Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Irish Soda Bread

When I was part of the work force we had a lady in our office named Kathy McDonough who loved St Patrick's day.  We had an office that started out probably about 50 people and ended up closer to 100, and each year before St Patrick's day she started baking and freezing Irish Soda Bread.  On St Patrick's Day she would bring in many many loaves, enough for everybody and we would feast on Irish Soda Bread.  She did this for probably at least 10 years maybe more until they closed our office.  Grrr corporate America.  She was kind enough to share the recipe with me after I nagged for a year or two and I'd like to share it with you if there is anyone interested.  It is tried and true and delicious, Happy St Patrick's Day  a little early:

 

                                                   Irish Soda Bread
4 cups flour
1 1/2  tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 or 2 Tbsp. caraway seeds
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup raisins
2 Tbsp. melted butter
2 lightly beaten eggs
1 1/2 sups buttermilk (if no buttermilk, you can make sour milk by adding a couple of Tbsp. of vinegar
          or lemon juice to regular milk)

 Sift flour, soda and salt together and add seeds, sugar and raisins.  Mix butter, eggs and milk and stir into flour mixture.  I then wash my hands spray them with Pam and finish mixing with my hands until will form a soft little bit floppy ball.  I bake mine in 2 greased 6 inch cake pans (the picture above is a double recipe), but you can bake them in 1 greased 8 or 9 inch cake pan.  Cut a cross in the top about 1/2 inch deep, all the way from end to end.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 1 1/4 hours for the large loaf or about 50 minutes for the small loaves.  Cool and wrap in foil.

Enjoy the caraway raisiny goodness.  DH and I love it.

4 comments:

Anita said...

Thank you Candace I'm going to give it a try. I'll have to find some caraway seeds as I don't have any. Think I'll just make regular loaves though. I'll let you know how it comes out.
Anita

Amanda said...

Soda bread is reasonably common here all year round, but usually without raisins or caraway seeds or more than a teaspoonful of sugar. I used to eat it a lot when I thought it was just yeast I was intolerant to. But now I've discovered that I'm intolerant to gluten in all forms I can't eat it at all. Shame. St Patrick's Day usually passes without mention here, in fact I don't even know when it is.

Linda said...

Yum, I'm going to have to try this recipe out. Thanks for sharing! I'm a little Irish too and I love to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. I have a friend who's birthday is on St. Patricks day and we always have so much fun celebrating. I hope it was happy!

Anonymous said...

Hello Candace, from one Irish descendant to another...grin...thankyou for the story of the Irish Soda Bread and the recipe to go with it...enjoyed your post...Hugs Lyn