Sláinte Irish Soda Bread

The Mar. 20th recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie is Irish Soda Bread from the book Baking with Julia (see Chocolate Moosey for the full recipe or refer to the cookbook).

Learn more about Tuesdays with Dorie and see links to the blogs of my fellow bakers.

I think this is possibly the best Irish Soda Bread I have ever eaten. Certainly it is the best (and easiest) I have ever made!

This recipe was so easy! Four ingredients. I went with the non-currant/raisin option.

Mix it all together to make a dough.

Shape into a round and bake.

Mmmm... so pretty!

I took this bread to a St. Patrick's Day party. Mindful of the "hard as the blarney stone" short shelf life comment in the cookbook, this bread went into the oven at 3pm for a 5pm party. I transported it wrapped in a partially damp cloth wrapped in a plastic bag. It traveled great and received many compliments at the party. I served it with Irish butter and Catholic Elderberry jam (thank you Trappist Monks!)

Success!

Next time Pizza Rustica! I love savory pies so I'm pretty excited about this recipe.

Supermom Rugelach

The Mar. 6th recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie is Rugelach from the book Baking with Julia (see http://www.goodeatsblog.com/ for the full recipe or refer to the cookbook).

To learn more about Tuesdays with Dorie and links to the blogs of my fellow bakers:http://tuesdayswithdorie.wordpress.com/

Absent husband, sick baby, and the Rugelach still got made! Whoohoo! I still have a pile of cookie sheets on my counter waiting to be washed, but I'm ignoring that fact for the moment.

Cream cheese dough was easily made in the mixer. I find I kinda like making dough.

I made two versions: one with fig butter and one with apricot jam. That is what they had at the store (which was even in a Jewish part of the city, but still no lekvar for my rugelach). The fig butter version turned out way better. The extra sugar in the apricot jam made the rugelach a little too sweet and the jam oozed out of the pastry when baked. I will definitely only make this with fruit butters in the future.

When I rolled up my Rugelach, I had no idea what I was doing. I had a hard time relating "jelly roll" to what was happening under my hands. I don't think I've ever eaten a jelly roll, much less made one. I ate a piece of pumpkin roll once. It worked out, but I forgot to take a picture.

Also I used this recipe as an excuse to order a big box of hazelnuts. Love love hazelnuts. My husband does not, which means they will last for more than two days in my house and I can actually savor the remaining bags. Every single nut used in this recipe was a gloriously delicious Oregon hazelnut.

Mmmm... cinnamon sugar hazelnutty goodness! I used an assortment of raisins re-plumped in Calvados (thank you for the inspiration, Nigella Lawson) and dates for my fruit. Wasn't so sure about all that dried fruit at first, but chopped up it worked really well.

Initially, I was not excited about making this recipe at all. I am not a fruit pastry person, give me a chocolate croissant instead any day! Except today. Because I was totally wrong. Rugelach ROCKS. Especially still warm from the oven. My pre-baby jeans will not be fitting this week.