Irish Soda Bread: Rose's Bread Bible Bakers

                             Irish Soda Bread 'The Bread Bible'

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I haven't been around much, my Dad passed away in October and I'm feeling sad. I didn't really want to bake but it has helped having something to do, even though I had lots of "family food memory" tears from the first scoop of flour.  

Ha, ha my Aunty Clare would not have been happy I didn't have any whiskey in the pantry, as Aunty Clare did believe whiskey made everything better. However, I did have a bottle of Irish Whiskey liqueur so I could go ahead and bake Rose Levy Beranbaum's rather special version of 'Irish Soda Bread'. 

Not a strong tipple that puts hairs on your chest but rather a gentler caramel, butterscotch Irish Whiskey concoction.  I love it!! It's whiskey dessert in a bottle.

My step son is living and working in Dublin at the moment and he tells me soda bread is common place and known simply as "brown bread'.

Daniel and his lovely Irish girlfriend Emer... Galway Ireland

Rose's deluxe version of Irish soda bread starts off with soaking raisins in *Irish whiskey (for me the liqueur) for at least 30 minutes.

I've used Australian raisins from the Walthcross and Lexia grape varietals, they are flattish, moist and sweet with a distinct muscat flavour.

Next wholemeal flour, white flour, sugar, salt and bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) are stirred together.

Butter is then rubbed in... Australians will be familiar with this method we usually use for scones. 

The whiskey plumped raisins are added and then buttermilk is stirred in. 

Shaped into a round loaf, a cross was cut in the top and the Irish soda bread was in baked in a preheated oven until golden. 

There was an option to make to whiskey butter with the soaking liquid from the raisins, sounded delicious but since I was serving with whiskey I didn't make it this time around. 

I liked the soda bread best warm, the texture is robust but not heavy and definitely suited to a swoop of butter whether that be Kerry Gold or Rose's recipe for whiskey butter.  

 A quick, easy and tasty bake. 

*Note I'd swap the whiskey out for the same volume of strongly brewed black tea for the raisin soaking liquid  if I needed to go alcohol free.  

Oh, and congratulation wishes to Emer who graduated this week!! 

Happy Baking xx

Today has been one of the 'Rose's Bread Bible Bakers' bakes where a group of fabulous bakers get together and bake from the pages of 'The Bread Bible'.

The Bread Bibleby Rose Levy Beranbaum is available from Amazon and all discerning book stores. 

 You might also be interested in a recipe for  Half a Grasshopper Pie

or perhaps Tiesen Sinamon (Welsh Cinnamon Cake) cupcakes

Kourambiethes Rose's Alpha Bakers

Kourambiethes (Greek Biscuits) 'The Baking Bible'

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Aristotle wore an icing sugar moustache. 

With a portly build and chubby hands, I was trying not to stare at the child sized more like a four year old than the eighteen month year old his parents professed him to be. That's how it began, my first after school job babysitting Aristotle in the back of the Greek delicatessen. 

It was pre Christmas rush, time for freshly baked Kourambiethes. Trays of snowy white crescents and clove dotted balls drifted past, aromas of spiced oranges and roses trailing in the air... then again, it could have been Aristotle's breath!

Today's bake from 'The Baking Bible' is Kourambiethes (Greek biscuits/cookies), a light shorbread usually made with the Greek brandy Metaxa in the recipe (orange juice if going alcohol free), with or without nuts these are always delicious and never more so than Rose's recipe that uses whipped clarified butter.  

The recipe starts with clarifying the butter. Lots of butter!!

Cubed butter is melted.

Foam can be skimmed off the top of melted butter as your going if desired, using a spoon or a small slotted spoon being careful not to remove too much of the butter.

Butter is strained through the muslin to remove all milk solids. 

Chilled clarified butter is unmoulded ready to be chopped, transferred to a mixing bowl with icing sugar.

My butter weight was short, perhaps due the ummm, zillion (or at least six) folds I made in the muslin. I had to melt more butter to strain to make up weight. I used food safe muslin, using food safe muslin rather than fabric from a fabric store ensures no chemicals unsafe for human consumption are used.

Oh, better toast the almonds... these are what Australian's call slivered almonds this may differ in other countries, but it's what I toasted and then chopped.

toasted chopped almonds

Ten minutes mixing and you have a white fluffy butter mixture, egg yolks, brandy, vanilla are added before the chopped toasted almonds are mixed in and finally the flour and baking powder.

After chilling the biscuit mixture is shaped into balls (I made the traditional crescent shapes too).

Often garnished with a whole clove, you see these cookies at Christmas time and Pascha (Greek Easter), though I have had them at Greek Weddings too. 

Keeping with tradition, I added a whole clove to the center of the round cookies. Despite the "tooth ache drops" smell when you open your cloves pack it won't taste like that once baked, what you get is a lovely touch of spice and a gentle spice aroma. 

Wish you could taste these, the texture is so light and airy! Don't forget to remove your clove :)

Would I bake again? Yes, love the light airy texture the clarified butter brings.

Would I change anything? Yes, I like stronger flavours so I would add either rose water, orange water and orange zest. Salt... I'd add salt, all a bit sweet. Spices; would be nice with nutmeg, cardamom or experiment with teas and coffee. Break with tradition and change the nuts, have a peanut Greek biscuit, pipe on chocolate or perhaps top warm pistachio biscuits with freeze dried cherry dust. 

How it works... now I've joined the fabulous existing alpha bakers, once a month I will post about what I have baked from Rose Levy Beranbaum's 'The Baking Bible'. This won't include the recipe due to copyright and publisher restrictions however, I will be posting how it went and photos of making/baking the gorgeous baked goods.

The Baking Bible available from Amazon and all discerning book retailers. 

You never know when you will need to make a fondant toe... a Cinderella stepsister toe cupcake. 

Butterscotch Brittle Recipe

                              salted butterscotch brittle

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Have you tried your hand at making your own confectionary? It would have been my Mum's birthday today, and as Mum loved all forms of caramels including hard butterscotch lollies I thought we could look at making candies/lollies starting with cooking sugar to the 'hard crack' stage. 

'Hard crack' lollies include; candy canes, lollipops, brittles, praline, lollies categorised as "boiled lollies" like fruit/acid/sour drops and hard caramels. 'Hard crack' is reached at 150C (300F), we are taking it a little further today to produce caramel.

Glucose syrup is another form of sugar and like fructose often added to granulated sugar when making candy. The glucose syrup helps prevent the sugar crystallising. In Australia you can buy glucose syrup in any supermarket, you might have to seek it out in other parts of the world.

Butterscotch Brittle

Buttery and carmelly (ok, that's not a word... but it should be!) with a touch of sea salt, today's hard lollies are meant to be sucked, add peanuts, pecans or macadamia for nut brittle. Whether packaged in cello bags complete with a small hammer to crack off pieces, or neatly moulded; butterscotch brittle makes for a lovely homemade gift. 

lightly oil a 18cm x 28cm tin (7in by 11in sheet pan)

Ingredients

2 cups white sugar (granulated white) 

1/3 cup water

*2/3 cup glucose syrup

2 tsp of pure vanilla extract/essence

125g butter, cubed (4oz)

pinch or two of salt

flaked sea salt if desired for topping

Method

In a medium saucepan combine, sugar, water and glucose syrup. Stir together over a low heat until the sugar is dissolved.

Bring to boil, wash down any sugar crystals around the edge of sugar mixture with a damp pastry brush.

a damp pastry brush is used to wash down any sugar crystals

Reduce heat to low, (mixture should still be boiling) and boil without stirring for 7 to 10 minutes or until it reaches 170C (338F) on a candy thermometer. The mixture should be an amber colour.

a inexpensive candy thermometer is the easiest way to ensure accurate setting points. 

Remove saucepan from heat and with a wooden spoon stir in butter, vanilla and two pinches of salt (if your using salt on top reduce pinch of salt to one pinch).

Pour into oiled pan, make sure you do this in one pour... if you scrape the pan onto what you have poured it will leave marks/discoloration on the finished candy.

 Whilst the mixture is still fairly hot, score lines and sprinkle with sea salt. Scoring the lines allows for fairly neat breaks in the finished candy, however to get "perfect" pieces you have to score very deeply or use a candy mould with shapes of choice.

Allow to totally cool. Pop out of tin and package as desired. 

*glucose syrup is thick and very sticky, oil the measuring cup for ease of pouring.

* stir in 1 to 2 cups of dry roasted peanuts when adding the butter for butterscotch peanut brittle. 

Happy Baking :)

you might also be interested in liquid syrups 

you might also be interested in honey comb/sponge candy

Fruit Curds and Butters

Fruit curds or butters are simple to make and a great introduction to preserving. 

I use them for cupcake and mini tart fillings, but they are as equally good spread on a crumpet served with a cup of tea, stirred into yoghurt or spooned over a dessert. Baked yellow buttermilk cupcake filled with raspberry curd, then iced.

My favourites are flavours are raspberry and tangelo, though feel free to substitute lemon, lime, orange for the tangelo, ruby red grapefruit makes lovely curd too. Or try strawberries or blackberries instead of the raspberries.

Tangelo Curd

Ingredients
Makes 1 1/2 cups

3 large egg yolks
Zest of 1/2 a large tangelo
1/4 cup of tangelo juice
6 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons butter, cold and diced

Method
Combine yolks,  zest,  juice, and sugar in a small saucepan. Whisk to combine. Set over medium heat, and stir constantly with a wooden spoon, making sure to stir sides and bottom of pan. Cook until mixture is thick enough to coat back of wooden spoon, 5 to 7 minutes.

Remove saucepan from heat. Add the butter, one piece at a time, stirring with the wooden spoon until consistency is smooth. Strain.
Transfer mixture to a medium bowl. Lay a sheet of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the curd to avoid a skin from forming; wrap tightly. Let cool; refrigerate until firm and chilled, at least 1 hour. Store, refrigerated in an airtight container, up to 2 days.

Adapted from Martha Stewart's lemon curd

Raspberry curd
Makes just over 2 cups

Ingredients
500g (1.10 lb) of Raspberries 
225g (1/2  lb) of white sugar
60g (2oz) of salted butter diced
2 large eggs beaten

Method
Put a quarter of cup of water and the raspberries in a saucepan, bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Rub the mixture through a sieve to remove seeds.

In a double boiler or a heat proof bowl over a pan of simmering water set on the lowest heat possible, whisk the raspberries, sugar, butter and egg until the sugar has dissolved.

Swap to a wooden spoon and continue to simmer; until the mixture thickens and coats the back of the wooden spoon. Remove from heat, give it another stir, if you feel it's too thin pop it back on the heat for another minute or two. Remember it will thicken on cooling. 

Strain. Pot in sterilised jars or if you are using it within the week a covered container is fine. Refrigerate. 

Note: you don't ever want a curd to boil, it will result in curdled (bits of cooked egg) in your curd. If you do get a any sign of bubbling, remove curd pot from stove an submerge base of pan into iced water.

Make combed chocolate curls