Irish Soda Bread

Irish Soda Bread

It's March! Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day!  It's time to bake the Irish Soda Bread to enjoy this weekend!!!  This yummy bread is also called Spotted Dog.  Oh, it is so good!

Unsalted Butter, Raisins & Fat Free or Low Fat Buttermilk are 3 of the ingredients.  Enjoying a slice or two of this bread on St. Patrick's Day is a tradition in my family.  What a great bread!  If you have any extra slices, they can be frozen to enjoy another weekend.  There just may not be any extra slices.

Here's my history of me finding this recipe: 

I'll always remember the year I was "googling" for an Irish Soda Bread recipe that used 1 Cup of Buttermilk.  That's all I had in the fridge.  There was the recipe on the blog Charli and Me written by Carol.  Carol shared that this great recipe originally came from the Will O'Glenn Irish Bed and Breakfast in Michigan with Mrs. Biddy Gahan sharing it.  I'm always so happy that all of these kind folks passed it along!  I use unsalted & fat free/ low fat ingredients & it's so good!  Every year I bake this Irish Soda Bread for St. Patrick's Day & also a couple of other times during the year.

***My hints:

• Melt & then cool the Butter before using.
• Before placing the sticky dough in the pie plate, rub a little Butter on your hands.
• Spray the pie plate with PAM. 

Ready to place in my oven!

Irish Soda Bread
Oven: 400°F, then lowered to 375°F.

Total baking time:  40- 45 Minutes

Ingredients:
1 and 1/2 Cups Raisins
1 Cup Boiling Water
**********
1 stick unsalted Butter 
2 and 1/2 Cups Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
5 Tablespoons Sugar
1 Cup Buttermilk, can be Fat Free or Low Fat 
PAM

Method:  

1.  Preheat oven to 400°F.
2.  Spray Pyrex pie plate with PAM.
3.  In a small bowl combine Raisins & boiling water.  Let sit while preparing dough.
4.  Melt butter.  Cool.
5.  In large mixing bowl combine Flour, Baking Soda, Baking Powder & Sugar. 
6.  Add melted Butter to dry ingredients.  Stir in.
7.  Add Buttermilk. Stir.
8.  Add drained Raisins.  Stir. 
9.  Shape the dough into a ball after placing in the pie plate.  Dough is sticky.
10.  Bake 15 Minutes at 400°F.
11.  Then, lower oven temperature to 375°F.  Bake 25- 30 Minutes longer.
12.  Remove bread from pie plate after using a cake tester or toothpick to test for "done".  
13.  Cool on rack.
14.  Wait at least 5 hours before cutting into slices.
15.  Enjoy!

Heat half of a slice in the microwave for a few seconds.  What an extra special treat!  Warm or room temperature, this is just so good!

Enjoy!
Yummy!

 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!