March 16, 2021
March is an exciting time in our household. It marks the transition from colder days to warmer days. Just this weekend, we sprung forward with our clocks. March also means March Madness. Kevin has already started picking his brackets for the NCAA tournament. We both have our fingers crossed for Michigan to win. I guess we will have to wait and see. I’ve already started cheering for our team by baking up maize and blue layered cookies featuring layers of maize and blue almond cakes adhered together with apricot jam. To help keep myself distracted until the start of the tourney, I’ve been back in the kitchen cooking and baking up tons of treats. For Pi Day, I retested a recipe I’ve been working on for a black raspberry Linzer pie loosely inspired by the Linzer torte. A few days after Pi Day is St. Patrick’s Day, which of course means making more celebratory foods to enjoy for the holiday including my version of soda bread. Whenever St. Patrick’s Day comes around, I always think back to the fond memories I had while living in Chicago. When I lived in Chicago, I always looked forward to St. Patrick’s Day because of all of the celebratory events occurring throughout the city. One popular tradition unique to Chicago is the green river. The city of Chicago would dye the river the most vibrant shade of green a few days before St. Patrick’s Day. People from all over the world would flock to the city to celebrate the holiday over delightful foods and drinks. During the three years I lived in Chicago, I would always take the el to downtown Chicago just to enjoy the beautiful views. Strolling down the Chicago Riverwalk and soaking in the magnificent views were two of my favorite activities to do in Chicago especially around St. Patrick’s Day. When I moved away from Chicago, I missed a lot of the familiar landmarks I used to love visiting when I lived there. Most of all, I missed all of the foods unique to the city including Chicago mix popcorn and deep dish pizza. Even though I often recreate many of my favorite foods from Chicago, I still miss enjoying those foods in person at the restaurants where the foods originated from. Fast forward to 2021 and I’ve been hard at work testing and developing recipes to help me feel more connected to the places I have once called home. In the weeks leading up to St. Patrick’s Day, I have been working on my own version of soda bread. Soda bread gets its name from the baking soda used to leaven the bread. When the baking soda reacts with the acidic buttermilk, the dough turns into the most delightfully moist soda bread in the oven. For my version, I worked in tons of golden raisins to help give the soda bread a sweet touch. During my testing phase, I even brought over some soda bread to give to our friends along with the Linzer inspired pie I’ve been testing out. While traditional soda bread typically features just a few basic ingredients, I did add a couple more ingredients (some golden raisins and a touch of sugar) to create a sweet version. The addition of sugar helps enhance the sweetness already present in the golden raisins. The bread itself came together rather quickly once I mixed all of the ingredients together and popped the plop of dough into the oven to bake. To round out the rest of our celebratory meal, I whipped together my green with vegetable envy soup (a simple spinach, broccoli, and potato soup) and some Irish cheddar crisps made by crisping up some grated Irish cheddar cheese in the oven. The cheddar crisps paired perfectly with the broccoli, spinach, and potato soup and reminded me vaguely of broccoli and cheddar soup. As if the bread and soup wasn’t enough, I also whipped up some minty chocolate shakes topped with a golden whipped cream (loosely inspired by the super popular shamrock shake). With our soda bread, soup, and shakes in hand, we were all set for St. Patrick’s Day.
For the golden raisin soda bread:
· 2 cups pastry flour, plus an additional ¼ cup for kneading the dough
· ½ tablespoon baking powder
· ½ teaspoon baking soda
· ½ teaspoon kosher salt
· ½ tablespoon granulated sugar
· 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
· 2 ounces golden raisins
· ¾ cup buttermilk
Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 375°F. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Set aside.
2) In a large bowl, combine the pastry flour, baking powder, baking soda, kosher salt, and granulated sugar. Add in the unsalted butter. Use a pastry cutter to cut all of the ingredients together.
3) Sprinkle in almost all of the golden raisins. Reserve some of the golden raisins for pressing onto the dough prior to baking.
4) Create a well in the center and gently pour in the buttermilk. Use your hands to gently mix the dry and wet ingredients together until the dough is just combined. Gradually knead in the remaining ¼ cup of pastry flour as needed. The dough will be wet and sticky at this point. Transfer the dough to the parchment-lined baking sheet.
5) Use a serrated knife dipped in water to cut a deep cross in the dough. Dipping the knife in water helps keep the knife from sticking to the dough when slicing.
6) When the oven has reached 375°F, transfer the baking sheet to the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes.
Takeaways: A good substitute for buttermilk is to fill a measuring cup with a tablespoon of white vinegar and fill the rest of the ¾ cup mark with whole milk. I’ve used this method a couple times during my testing phase as a substitute for the buttermilk. The soda bread tastes best when consumed immediately, but I’ve also wrapped up leftover soda bread and stored it in the refrigerator for up to a week.