Award Winning Irish Soda Bread

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  In honor of the holiday, I thought it would be entirely appropriate to post a recipe for Irish Soda Bread.  It does require baking, after all, and what better than an award winning recipe?  It is a recipe that my Mom uses and she won a gold medal for it at the annual Irish Feis (traditional Gaelic arts and culture festival) in Buffalo, NY.  Pre-Riverdance and Lord of the Dance, I used to dance for Desmond Penrose and later for Edward Murphy, Director of the Drumcliffe School of Irish Dance.  Those were fun times! 

This is a stock photo taken from the Internet of what Irish Soda Bread, with raisins (optional), looks like. When I eventually make a loaf, I will post an actual photo to the blog.  See recipe below.

Marilyn's Irish Soda Bread

4 cups of flour                                                   6 Tbs. butter
3 Tbs. sugar                                                      1 1/2 c. raisins
1 Tbs. baking powder                                      1 Tbs. caraway seeds (optional)
1 tsp. salt                                                           2 eggs
3/4 tsp. baking soda                                         1 1/3 cup of butter milk


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a round casserole baking dish ( I have also used a round pie plate and works just as well) - In a large bowl with a fork, mix the first five ingredients - then cut the butter into the flour mixture ( I usually cube the butter first) - the mixutre will resemble coarse crumbs - then add the raisins and caraway seeds.

In a smaller bowl beat the eggs an retain a tablespoon to brush the top of the bread for a nice glaze - add the eggs and butter milk to the flour mixture - mix thoroughly - the mixutre will be sticky - flour your hands and turn the mixture onto a floured surface and knead about 10 times into a nice round ball - place in casserole - cut a deep cross into the bread about 1/4 inch deep - brush with egg - bake about 1 hour and 10 mins. until a tootpick comes out clean when placed in the center of the bread - let cool in pan for about 10 min. it will pop right out - cool completely before slicing.  Enjoy!!

Frosted Date Balls

These Frosted Date Balls are easy to make and delicious!  They are soft and chewy and sweet - perfect to wash down with a glass of cold milk or to enjoy with a cup of tea.  A great follow up to the last recipe I posted, Banana and Date Circles, since I was able to use up the leftover dates.  The only downside is that the recipe claims a yield of a few dozen cookies yet I was only able to get just over two dozen when I made them.  And I wouldn't have made the dough balls any smaller.  I'll be bringing this batch to my book club this evening!  Make note of the serving platter which is a Mikasa pattern from the 70's courtesy of "Gracie".

1 1/4 cups sifted flour

1/4 tsp. salt

1/3 c. sifted confectioner's sugar

1/2 c. butter

1 T. milk

1 tsp. vanilla

2/3 c. chopped dates

1/2 c. chopped nuts (I used walnuts since I already had some on hand)

Combine flour and salt; sift twice.  Cream the butter and gradually add sugar.  Add milk and vanilla and stir in the sifted flour.  Blend in dates and nuts.  (Note: I used clean hands to incorporate the dates and nuts.  Even though they are chopped, the date pieces stick together so by using your hands you can ensure the dates are spread evenly throughout the dough.)  Roll in 1 in. balls.  Place about 3 inches apart on ungreased baking sheet.  Bake in a 300 degree oven about 20 min. until light brown.  While still warm roll in confectioner's sugar.  Makes 3 dozen cookies.  Good Luck!

"All About Home Baking"

Among the recipes I have been posting, there is also a very worn book entitled, "All About Home Baking".  The first few pages are missing so I cannot speak to the age of the book or the publishing house. It has a yellow and black gingham hard cover and I hope you can see from the photo just how worn it truly is - from age as well as a lot of use, I assume, because there are recipes jotted down on the inside and back covers as well as grease stains, etc. throughout the pages.

I am particularly drawn to the first page I see when I open the cover: It's a Wise Woman Who Knows Her Baking Rules.  This gets my blood going!  I had a similar reaction years ago as I browsed an antique store and found a small soft covered cookbook, "Desserts that Men Love".  So sexist, right?  It suggests that a woman's job is to serve and please her man - with a smile on her face and a spring in her step, and in a dress and heels.  Unfortunately, while the dress and heels have fallen away, the expectation still exists.  Many husbands now help in the kitchen with cooking and cleaning up, but for the most part it is the woman who is expected to grocery shop, plan and prepare meals.  Thank goodness for store bought baked goods and mixes.  Thank goodness for Wegmans!

Even more fascinating is that at the time of its writing this book fashions itself as modern.  "Today's busy women...will not take time to learn their (baking) tricks that way (through practice and repetition) and modern knowledge makes it unnecessary.  The progressive homemaker walks right up  to Science and says, 'You tell me how.'" Ha!

Banana and Date Circles

So I finally got around to the next baking recipe: Banana and Date Circles, compliments of my grandma's friend, Phyllis.  I should probably contact Phyllis to find out how these are supposed to turn out because beats me if I know.  Admittedly, I ignored the "heaping teaspoon" part of the serving onto the cookie sheet and used more like a tablespoon so perhaps this is where I went wrong.  This is my major malfunction when it comes to baking - patience.  I do a decent job of prepping the ingredients, but once it comes to putting it all together it had better go quickly and easily or I lose interest, especially if it is at the end of a long day I tend to hit a wall.  It was last night at 8 p.m. when I was putting these in the oven.

Don't get me wrong, these taste GREAT!, and I can envision putting a scoop of vanilla ice cream between two of them and going to town, but the "cookie" (at least I think it is supposed to be a type of cookie) spread very flat during baking as you can see from the photos. If they had been smaller they might have been more manageable in getting them off the cookie sheet.  My top rack cookies seem fine, but the bottom rack burned on the bottom so that they stuck to the sheet.  I used Heath Bar toffee bits that come in an 8 oz. bag instead of butterscotch pieces.  I do not think this was what affected the outcome of the cookies, but who knows?  Notice that the amount of butterscotch pieces is cut off on the scan and unfortunately I cannot find the original.  Maybe the 8 oz. bag was either too much or not enough?  I welcome any and all comments and suggestions. (NB: I found the original recipe and I should have used only 6oz. of the toffee (or butterscotch) bits!)

3/4 cup soft butter or margarine
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 cup sifted all purpose flour
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup mashed bananas
1/2 cup coarsely snipped dates (approximately 6 large dates)
1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
X oz. package butterscotch pieces (I used an 8 oz. bag of Heath Bar toffee bits - you should only use 6 oz.)

Make anytime within 2 weeks before serving (this seems to be an important point that is underlined in the original recipe).
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, beat in egg.  Sift together dry ingredients and add to butter mixture.  Stir in rolled oats, bananas, dates, nuts and butterscotch.  Drop by heaping teaspoon onto greased sheet.  Makes about 6 doz.

Mitochondrial Disease Defined

What is mitochondrial disease?   As a reminder, my plan is to complete "Baking Gracefully" and publish it to raise money for the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation.  My sister has a mitochondrial disease and few people know what this means.  Click on the link provided in this post to learn more.

Some of you may recognize the term "mitochondria" from science class.  At Cardinal Mooney High School, Mr. Tierney taught us that the "mighty mitochondria" perform cellular respiration thereby giving the cell/organism energy.  Practically every cell in your body contains mitochondria with hundreds in the muscle cells where more energy is required.  One could imagine that if there is dysfunction in this cell structure some serious problems would result.  Mitochondria have their own DNA - handy for housing their own special set of genetic defects to be passed silently from generation to generation, eh?

Still a burgeoning area of research as the UMDF was founded only in 1998.

Yellow Sunshine Cake

If you are looking to make a very traditional layer cake with homemade buttercream frosting, this is the recipe for you!  The cake is interesting because it requires no "oleo".  The fluffy batter made from whipped egg yolks and egg whites yields a very light, drier cake that, when drenched in buttercream, has a wedding cake flavor and consistency.  The recipe indicates a bake time of 1 hour at 325 degrees, but the size and type of pan is not listed.  I split the batter into three 8-9" rounds only to find that the bake time was reduced to about 20-30 min.  I am being intentionally vague because my oven is possessed.  If it is set at 350 the temp goes up to 400. If it is set at 325 it goes down to 300.  So I watched the cakes like a hawk and they still ended up a bit overdone but still delicious.  What I am saying is that you may wish to experiment with the actual baking pan(s), temp, and time.  Good luck!

6 egg yolks beaten for 15 minutes (save egg whites)

1/2 c. cold water - add to beaten egg yolks and beat 10 more min.

Add 1 1/2 c. sugar and 1/2 tsp. vanilla (I beat the mixture for just a few seconds more)

Fold in 1 1/2 c. cake flour (and 1/4 tsp. salt - recipe doesn't say)

Beat egg whites stiff and add 3/4 tsp. cream of tartar - fold in

For the buttercream frosting I followed the directions on the bag of confectionary sugar.  I will say it involved 2 c. of butter and 7 c. of confectionary sugar, some vanilla and milk.  Enjoy!