A Day Late for St. Patty's Day, but Still Delicious

I have mentioned my sister too many times to count at this point, but I think she deserves another shout-out today. Through her blog, I have discovered several new and wonderful food blogs that have made my must-read list. One of those blogs is Big Red Kitchen, where Robin Sue is constantly cooking up something tasty. I was recently perusing her blog when a St. Patrick's Day post caught my attention. The first thing that caught my eye were the costumes - a supper club that includes dress up?! This sounds like my kind of club! But the recipe at the bottom of her post for Irish Soda Bread was the thing that caught my eye and kept it. I knew I had to try out the recipe and see if it tasted as delicious as it looked on Robin Sue's blog.

The recipe was very simple to follow, and most of the ingredients were pantry basics for me. Robin Sue decided to leave out the caraway seeds and substitute dried cherries for the raisins originally called for the in the recipe. I followed her lead and omitted the caraway seeds as well, but I decided to follow the original recipe and use raisins instead of cherries (I have a box of raisins that is withering away and really needs to be used up! Any great raisin recipes out there??).



The only other significant substitution I made was to replace buttermilk with a combo of sour cream and spoiled milk. I am trying hard to use up ingredients I have on hand when possible, and I couldn't justify buying buttermilk for one recipe. I think my substitution worked very well. The spoiled milk and sour cream combo replicated the tangy snap of buttermilk - I highly recommend saving your spoiled milk and using it - especially in quick breads (including pancakes and waffles). It adds a great flavor, and it feels good to use up something that would otherwise get tossed.


The final product does taste as great as I thought it would! My mom has been eating it for breakfast (it makes a large loaf so I shared with various family members). It was divine straight out of the oven, slathered in butter. I think the eggwash glaze really tops this bread off, so don't skip that step!


Head over to Big Red Kitchen and check out Robin Sue's post for Irish Soda Bread for the recipe. I hope you enjoy her blog as much as I do!