Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Today, in honor of my Irish half, I decided to make Irish goodies for my family.  I knew we'd be having people over in the afternoon, so it was a good time to make sweets, which we never end up eating on our own.

My first task was Irish car bomb cupcakes.  I had pinned a recipe on Pinterest for these, but it called for a ganache filling, and I was feeling too lazy to do that, so I found a new one that called for a chocolate Guinness cupcake with Bailey's frosting.  They did not take too long, although the cupcakes took longer than normal because you have to melt the butter into the sugar, cocoa powder and Guinness on the stove, and then allow the mixture to cool before you mix it in to the flour.  However, I can say that they are worth the little bit of extra time.  The beer (which I usually hate) made the cake stay really moist and they have a great chocolatey taste.  The frosting got rave reviews, thanks to the 3 tablespoons of Bailey's!  My recipe made 24, and we only have 6 left.  That's a lot of cupcakes to disappear from my house.  My aunt Heidi stopped by and ate three!  These guys were a big hit.  They may be my new St. Patty's day tradition.

Then I stuck with an old tradition: Irish soda bread.  My parents have made this beauty for years.  The recipe we use comes from the Fanny Farmer cookbook, and only calls for 4 ingredients.  Today Allie sent over her old family recipe's soda bread, and it was so different from mine.  It was really sweet, and crumbly. Mine has no sugar and is more bread-like than crumbly.  I got curious and Googled it, and apparently (no offense, Allie!) our version is the traditional Irish soda bread.  The authentic ones only have 4 ingredients: salt, flour, baking soda, and buttermilk, since the people making it were very poor and could only bake with the bare minimum.  I add raisins to mine, which invalidates the authenticity (apparently then it is called spotted dog... or a spotted dick... ew!), but I love it with raisins!  More than half of the bread is gone, and since it was such a ridiculously easy recipe, I might have to make another one tomorrow.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day to everyone who is Irish, and everyone who wishes they were ;)

Recipes:
Guinness cupcakes with Bailey's frosting

Irish soda bread
adapted from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook

4 cups flour
1 1\2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups buttermilk

1) Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Grease a cookie sheet.

2) In large bowl toss together dry ingredients.

3) Add buttermilk.  Stir briskly with fork til dough forms together in a rough mass.

4) Knead on a liberally floured surface for about 30 secs. Pat into a round.  Slash a large 1\4″ deep X across the top. Place on baking sheet, and bake 45-50 mins. or until the crust is browned and the cross has spread open. Transfer to a rack to cool.

Apparently, the traditional thing to do next is to wrap it in a slightly damp tea towel and let it rest for 8 hours. Wrapping the baked, cooled bread in a damp towel helps it to settle and makes it easier to slice.  However, when you take this bread out of the oven, no one in your family would be able to wait 8 hours to eat it :)

To my bread, I probably added about 1/4 cup of raisins to the dough while I was kneading it.

My Irish baked goods!