Irish Soda Bread

The recipe came from Gourmet, a reader's recipe, Stephanie Foley of Massapequa, Long Island, from March, 2002. It's a bit different than many Irish Soda Bread recipes, which is why I decided to try it, back then. With the exception of the butter brushed on the loaves prior to baking, the only fat in it comes from the buttermilk, which isn't much. I've made it several times since then, always getting rave reviews for it. Truly it comes together in about 7 minutes, including time to gather the ingredients. Then it bakes about 35-40 minutes. Ideally you'll want to let it rest a bit before cutting it, but sometimes I've not had that luxury. But you must let it rest about 5 minutes, otherwise it's too hot to handle. It's heaven-on-a-bun [pun intended] with some unsalted butter spread on it, accompanying a soup.

Ready for the oven: here are the dough loaves, cut with 1/2 inch deep furrows, spread with butter.

Cook's Notes: my flour must be drier here in Southern California, than some, because I always have to add a drizzle more buttermilk to the bowl to give the dough enough liquid to pull it together. I added walnuts to this one, but that's optional. I'm sure it's not traditional. Some people don't like caraway, so eliminate it. I didn't melt the butter to spread on top of the loaves - I just used a spreader knife and brushed it with very soft butter instead. I've never tried substituting some whole wheat flour, but am sure you could. Would be better for us, obviously. This recipe says it serves up to 12 people. Maybe so, if you ate only one small slice. Not in our house. Each loaf probably serves 4, but that's max unless you have very small eaters.

Irish Soda Bread

Recipe: Gourmet, March, 2002

Servings: 12 [more like 8]

4 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

1 1/2 tablespoons caraway seeds [optional]

1 cup raisins, golden raisins or currants [also optional]

1/2 cup walnuts, chopped [my addition]

1 3/4 cups well-shaken buttermilk

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted.

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.

2. Butter and flour a large baking sheet, knocking off excess flour.
3. Sift together 4 cups flour, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl and stir in sugar, caraway, and raisins. Add buttermilk and stir just until dough is evenly moistened but still lumpy.

4. Transfer dough to a well-floured surface and gently knead with floured hands about 8 times to form a soft but slightly less sticky dough.

5. Halve dough and form into 2 balls. Pat out each ball into a domed 6-inch round on baking sheet. Cut a 1/2-inch-deep X on top of each loaf with a sharp knife, then brush loaves with butter.
6. Bake in middle of oven until golden brown and bottoms sound hollow when tapped, 35 to 40 minutes. Transfer loaves to racks to cool completely.

Per Serving: 226 Calories; 3g Fat (11.1% calories from fat); 6g Protein; 45g Carbohydrate; 2g Dietary Fiber; 6mg Cholesterol; 394mg Sodium. Exchanges: 2 Grain(Starch); 0 Vegetable; 1/2 Fruit; 0 Non-Fat Milk; 1/2 Fat; 0 Other Carbohydrates.

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Eat Your Fiber (Refrigerator Bran Muffins)

Think back to the 1960's. We were just starting to eat more cereal, rather than bacon and eggs every morning. Grape Nuts. Corn Flakes. Oatmeal hadn't hit the big time yet as a cholesterol fighter. We didn't even know about cholesterol back then. We hardly knew about yogurt - it was a kind of "health food" as I recall. But the cereal manufacturers had produced both All-Bran and Raisin Bran, so sure enough, somebody came up with a variation other than consuming it in your cereal bowl. I'm sure this recipe made the rounds of most home cooks of the era. It may be a recipe devised by Kellogg's for all I know, although I got it from a friend of my mother's. It originally called for All Bran, but it was too, too much fiber and not all that tasty, so I substituted the bran flakes instead. Much improved and have made them that way ever since. You mix it up in a big bowl, refrigerate it and plop batter into a muffin tin in the morning. Voila. Fifteen minutes later you have freshly baked muffins. The batter keeps for weeks in the refrigerator. The marketing of the day convinced us this kind of muffin was healthy for us because it contained bran. And raisins. Never mind the sugar - it was considered an energy source. That mentality hasn't changed - just look in the case at any Starbuck's and you'll see these humongous bran muffins - probably 500 or more calories and loads of fat. Hmmm.

Cook's Notes: Doctor these up with some additional dried fruits (dried cranberries, for instance, or chopped up apricots or some crystallized ginger) if you'd like some variety. I added some more golden raisins because the brand of Raisin Bran flakes was a little light on the fruit, in my opinion. It's wasn't Kellogg's, but somebody else's label. You can also add some cinnamon and ginger to the batter too, if you'd like a spicy variation. I substituted 1/3 Splenda for the sugar, and these are not overly sweet even so. If you like a sweeter muffin, add another 2 to 3 tablespoons of sugar. After making one batch of these the other day, I decided they were not quite sweet enough (I'd put in less sugar than called for). So, I added about 2 T. sugar to the wet batter, stirred it around a bit, then once plopped into the muffin tin, I sprinkled just a tad of sugar on top of each muffin. Oh. Very good. I'll do that again because the ouside of the muffin had just a bit of caramelization from the late-added sugar. I liked the texture.

These aren't going to wow your next breakfast. But, they're just plain and good. DH decided that our plain (unflavored, but sweetened) yogurt was just wonderful with these, and indeed they are. Something about the creaminess of the yogurt - like eating cream cheese with them, or something.

Refrigerator Bran Muffins
Recipe: Mary Wilfert, a San Diego friend from the 1960's
Serving Size : 30 (small)
3 cups Raisin bran -- cereal
1 cup boiling water
2 whole eggs -- lightly beaten
2 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
2 1/2 cups flour
1. Preheat oven to 425°.
2. In a large bowl mix bran cereal with boiling water, stirring to moisten evenly. Allow to cool, then mix in eggs, buttermilk, oil and stir well. Stir together (separately) the soda, salt, sugar and flour, then stir into the bran mixture.

3. Scoop batter into muffin tins and sprinkle tops with just a little bit of sugar. Bake for 20 minutes (small muffins). If using larger muffin tins, bake about 25 minutes.
NOTES : This whole mixture will keep in the refrigerator for several weeks if you want to bake them fresh in the morning.
Per Serving: 123 Calories; 4g Fat (30.9% calories from fat); 3g Protein; 19g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 15mg Cholesterol; 199mg Sodium. Exchanges: 1/2 Grain(Starch); 0 Lean Meat; 0 Fruit; 0 Non-Fat Milk; 1 Fat; 1/2 Other Carbohydrates.
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Oh darn, I did it again (Brandied Apricot Bars)

Surely I'm not alone in having an occasional baking failure, or my idiosyncrasies. I rarely have an actual cooking "failure." But, this was a close call! One of my greatest cooking failings is that I don't read the directions completely before plunging into the preparation. This time was no exception. But, hey, it's a cookie, and what's a little extra sugar, right?

Last time I made these, probably two years ago, after they were finished I even went into my recipe software and re-arranged the recipe, separating the ingredients for the bar part, the syrup part and the glaze part. So that I wouldn't do exactly when I repeated - again - today. But did I print out the recipe and toss the old one? You can guess, can't you? No. I didn't. Dummy. Idiot that I am. So this morning, as usual, always with 101 things on my mind (gotta finish this quickly, need to pay some bills, make the bed, finish my makeup) before I leave for a luncheon. I did READ the ingredients. But I glossed over the directions about separating the sugar portion (some of the sugar goes in the syrup).

This recipe is a favorite (when I make it) of my friend, Cherrie. She's an excellent cook, but she isn't a baker, so she relies on her friends who are bakers (uh, yea, that's me and others, I assume) to give her some goodies. And sometimes I give her a little bag of cookies which she parcels out in her DH Bud's lunch bag. I gave her one of my Bishop's Breads I made before Christmas. (I don't mean to be going on and on about my Bishop's Bread - it's just that Cherrie has learned to love this like I do.) Just a slice with her afternoon tea. So when one of her friends called to tell me she was having a birthday luncheon for Cherrie today, I thought - oh, I'll make a batch of those Brandied Apricot Bars for her. That will make Cherrie very, very happy. She adores these things. More than I do, actually. I mean, they're really good, but she would happily cross a glacier to get ahold of these, and she doesn't "do" cold. Of all the things I bake, these cookies may be her very favorite.

It could be the little rolling warmth that emanates from your gullet after chewing one - after all, it does have brandy in it. Not cooked much, either. Supposedly the alcohol is cooked off when you heat alcohol to a boil, but since this is apricot brandy you use, it's potent stuff and I'm sure there is still alcohol remaining, because I sure do get warmth in my mouth, throat and tummy when I eat these. Back when I made these the first time, Cherrie was actually staying with us for awhile. She and I were both having sleeping issues, often waking up in the middle of the night, not able to sleep (my reason was that I was taking Claritin-D; once I stopped taking that, I began sleeping better). But back then, if she heard me up, we'd meet in the kitchen, whispering so we wouldn't wake up my DH, and tiptoe with a tea tray into our living room, light the fire and have some Earl Gray and one of these bars. Or maybe two. At 6:30 am, or so, my DH would wander out, sleep in his eyes and say what in the world are you two doing? He learned eventually - if I wasn't in the bed with him when he awoke, I'd be in the living room with tea and a fire, or in my office playing some mindless solitaire.

So, back to today and too much sugar. What to do, what to do? I was already fully into the batter when I re-read the directions. That's when I discovered my mistake. Oops. I had put a scant cup of white sugar into the batter. So, I cut down some on the brown sugar (about half) and used less sugar in the brandy mixture. The lemon juice topping requires a certain amount of sugar - otherwise it would turn out too sour, so I really couldn't reduce the powdered sugar there. I also made these in a 9x13 Pyrex pan, so baked them slightly longer, and it made 32 bars, not 36. But even with all my bad reading and chemistry juggling, they turned out just fine. Amazing. And Cherrie was really tickled (see big smile below) with my plate of cookies. All for her, with a little bite for everybody else at the luncheon.

So, the recipe below, for these tummy-warming bars, is the corrected one. Note to self: print out the gosh-darned corrected recipe and put it in your file! (done!)

Brandied Apricot Bars
Recipe: Adapted by me from a Sunset Magazine article, 1996
Serving Size : 36
COOKIE BATTER:
7 tbsp butter
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 tbsp grated orange peel
1 tbsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 cups dried apricots -- minced
2/3 cup golden raisins
APRICOT SYRUP:
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup apricot brandy -- or Cointreau
3 tsp lemon juice
LEMON JUICE GLAZE:
4 tsp lemon juice
2/3 cup powdered sugar
1. Batter: preheat oven to 350°. In a large bowl, beat butter, 1/3 cup sugar, and brown sugar with mixer until fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition, then add orange peel and vanilla.
2. In separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder, soda and cinnamon. Stir into butter mixture along with apricots and raisins.
3. Pour batter into lightly buttered 10x15 inch pan. Bake for 20 minutes or until cookie is lightly browned and springs back in center. If using a 9x13 pan, bake for about 25 minutes. Set on rack to cool.
4. Apricot Syrup - Just before bars are done, combine 1/3 cup sugar, brandy, and 3 tsp lemon juice in sauce pan. Bring to boil over high heat, remove and when bars comes from oven, spoon warm apricot syrup evenly over it. Let cool completely, then cut into 3 dozen equal pieces and leave in pan.
5. Lemon Icing - mix 4 teaspoons lemon juice and powdered sugar until smooth. Drizzle over the cookies. Once drizzle is sort-of dried, remove bars from pan. Serving Ideas : Originally a cookie, I think these make an equally interesting dessert. But, whichever, they're great with a cup of coffee or tea.
NOTES : When making the final glaze, add enough powdered sugar to make the glaze fairly firm - otherwise the bars are too soft and difficult to hold in your hand(it will ooze the glaze) and they're hard to store. Serve immediately or store airtight up to 2 days; freeze to store longer. If storing or freezing, separate layers with waxed paper or plastic wrap. Originally the bar called for more butter and sugar, but I reduced the amounts, as well as the amount of apricots and raisins.
Per Serving: 132 Calories; 6g Fat (38.9% calories from fat); 2g Protein; 19g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 37mg Cholesterol; 93mg Sodium. Exchanges: 0 Grain(Starch); 0 Lean Meat; 1/2 Fruit; 1 Fat; 1/2 Other Carbohydrates. Printer-friendly recipe, click title at top.