Not an Irish bone in my body, but that is no reason not to share this spirited recipe with you. Naturally, this easy quick bread flavored with caraway seed (you know it from rye bread) and Irish whiskey soaked golden raisins is anything, but traditional. Unlike more authentic soda bread this one is less crusty and more moist. Thanks to a mix of buttermilk, baking soda and baking powder it rises nicely with lots of airy buttery nooks and crannies.
I like to use an ice cream scoop to dollop the batter into the pan. It creates the look of the more traditional soda bread and outlines the portions almost like a pan of pull apart rolls. Of course you can just pour the batter right into the pan and slice into wedges.
[recipe title=”Spirited Irish Soda Bread” servings=”8-12″]
½ cup golden raisins
1 tablespoon Irish whiskey
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1-teaspoon fine sea salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) frozen unsalted butter
1-teaspoon caraway seeds
2 eggs
1-cup buttermilk
Heat oven 375F. Lightly grease 9-inch round cake pan. In small bowl, toss raisins with whiskey; set aside. In medium bowl, whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda. Grate butter on the large holes of a box grater into flour mixture; mix with a fork until butter is fully coated with dry ingredients and looks crumbly. Stir in caraway seeds. In small bowl, whisk eggs until well blended; reserve 1 tablespoon in another small bowl. Whisk buttermilk into remaining egg; stir into flour mixture along with raisins and whiskey. Stir mixture just until dry ingredients are all moistened. Using an ice cream scoop, scoop batter into prepared pan with 9 scoops around edge of the pan and 3 scoops in the center. Drizzle reserved egg over the top and spread with the back of a spoon. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Run a knife around the edge of the pan. Invert onto a plate and then invert on to a cooling rack. Serve warm or room temperature.[/recipe]
And until next week here are some words of Irish encouragement:
Wishing you a rainbow
For sunlight after showers—
Miles and miles of Irish smiles
For golden happy hours—
Shamrocks at your doorway
For luck and laughter too,
And a host of friends that never ends
Each day your whole life through!
This looks delicious. My grandmother never taught us to use raisins, but I bet if they were soaked in whiskey she might have!
I bet your grandmother’s recipe is wonderful…keep the tradition going. But you know how I have to twist things up. It just seemed like the right thing to do those raisins and whiskey….maybe I will call it my Irish-Italian spin. Italians put dried fruit in many baked goods.
Yum, it looks great! I love golden raisins and I love caraway seeds … not too keen on whiskey, but I’m sure I could power through. Heck, I’d even do a shot of whiskey … if it was with you 😉
If truth be told I have a real aversion to whiskey (lets just say a college night of whiskey sours is not a good thing–the nauseating memory still with me), but the flavor here is super subtle and no problem simple leaving it out or substitute a teaspoon of vanilla