Wednesday, March 15, 2017

St. Patrick's Day is coming

You know St. Patrick's Day is coming when even the Italian bakeries have Irish Soda bread in the window!

I gave in and bought a loaf last week, rather than baking one, but I ate it all and St. Patrick's Day is not until Friday. I thought that, combined with the Blizzard that Wasn't (really) was a good excuse to pull out last year's post about soda bread scones!

Just the thing to enjoy with a cup of tea (Irish Breakfast of course) on a cold, snowy/icy day!

Irish Soda Bread Scones 


Years ago, when I walked my daughter to school before my walk to work, I would pass a coffee shop that sold to-die for soda bread scones. I've been craving them lately so here you go.

Disclaimer - this recipe is adapted from one given to me by a mother at my school who baked me the loaf form of this every Christmas and St. Patrick's Day for as long as her children were in the school. When they graduated, she gave me the recipe.


The recipe is very simple:

You start with 4 cups of sifted flour. I imagine you could use any flour (or a mix).  I used King Arthur's white.

Next you add 1/2 a cup of sugar. I used coconut palm sugar which gave the bread a lovely grainy look because the sugar has a brownish color.
Next add 1 tsp. baking powder and 1 tsp of salt. (I only used a shake of salt and I used low sodium baking powder).

1/3 of a cup of butter gets cut into the dry mixture. The recipe recommends using a pastry blender or fork to evenly distribute.

Next up - 1 cup of seedless raisins (or dried cranberries for a nice variation) and my favorite part - 2 tablespoons of caraway seeds!

Confession. I messed up this next part because I added the baking soda in with the dry ingredients. It did not cause any problems.

You're supposed to mix 1 tsp baking soda with 1 1/3 cups of buttermilk and 1 egg in a small bowl. You add this to the dry mix and knead gently.


See the dark specks from the coconut palm sugar?

At this point you could form it into a loaf, but instead I shaped it into scones. Likewise, the loaf should ideally go in a cast iron pan. I used parchment paper. ;)

The result was about 15 wonderful scones that kept nicely in the refrigerator in a ziplock bag.




They may be Irish, but I think you'll enjoy them all year long - especially when you sub cranberries (or some other fruit).



The predicted snowfall of up to 2 feet of snow didn't materialize for us, but the blizzard served its purpose.  The IKEA blue bag that has been tangled in the tree outside my house for over 6 months finally blew free!


Beautiful void! But we kind of miss the splash of color!



8 comments:

  1. These sound delicious! I'll have to try them this week.

    I have to laugh at your blizzard that wasn't. The weather people try too hard to make sure we have plenty of warning, but they're wrong so often it's silly. Weather is such a changeable thing!

    But I'm glad you didn't have snowmageddon. A bad storm can be so dangerous.

    Have a happy St. Patrick's Day!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Jan. Unfortunately lots of people who weren't supposed to be impacted suddenly found themselves 3 feet under.

      Delete
  2. That was a crazy storm. We only got 20 cm but they got way more down along the seaway. So glad that the IKEA bag is now free to fly on to better climes. :-)

    I'm glad you posted this because I adore Irish Soda bread -- make it quite a bit when I run out of bread at home and don't have the umph to get the yeast out. I was planning on making it for St. Patrick's Day with yummy currants but I realize that's on Friday and physio is Fridays and I never feel up to doing anything after that soooo best make it tomorrow. It won't be fresh out of the oven warm on the 17th but it will still be delish. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Kav, I'm weird, but I always prefer it as it gets a bit older. A day later sounds perfect to me. Enjoy! And good luck with the physio. It sounds like you're making such wonderful progress.

      Delete
  3. Okay, so the only thing I might love more than Irish soda bread is scones, so this is a SCORE! Hmm, wonder how these will play with the Czech/German/Bohemian folks around town.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey, if it's good enough for the Italians....

      Delete
  4. I really, really want to make scones sometime! I have been planning to for ages. Thanks for re-sharing this!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Missy, I saw an Irish Sofa bread muffin recipe today. They proudly boasted that there was really nothing Irish about it, but the recipe looked so tempting!

      Delete