Irish Soda Bread Recipes x3

I had some leftover buttermilk from the Broccoli Slaw and I was thinking of what else I could make... Irish Soda Bread! It is a little late past St. Patrick's Day but it is a recipe I've been waiting to try!

Since I don't do this in parts and I couldn't decide which recipe to make, I decided to make all 3!

I adjusted each recipe for 2 cups of flour and updated all the ingredient measurements. I did not use caraway seeds or the chocolate chips for a more even comparison.

I baked Recipe 1 and Recipe 2 as suggested. I baked Recipe 3 at 350 for 40 minutes. Recipe 1 follows an authentic Irish Soda Bread recipe. Recipe 2 was sweeter and moister. Recipe 3 was similar to a biscuit texture.

For a different variation use chocolate chips for the raisins.

If you give them a try let me know what you think!

Below are the original recipes:

Recipe 1

2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup raisins
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp Caraway seeds (Optional) or 1/2 cup chocolate chips (Optional)

Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Put the dough on a well floured surface and knead until no longer super sticky. Place on a cookie sheet and slice the top lightly with an "X"

Bake 10 minutes at 375 and then 40 minutes at 350.

Recipe 2 followed Recipe 1 without the salt but the addition of sugar, eggs, and melted butter. I didn't use the caraway seeds. However, the recipe called for "T" and "t" which I didn't realize until after that "T" means Tablespoon and "t" means teaspoon. So the recipe wasn't followed as closely as planned, at least I can't remember. At any rate...

Recipe 2

3 cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cups raisins
2 cups buttermilk
1/3 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 tsp melted butter
1 tbsp Caraway Seeds (Optional) or 1/2 cup chocolate chips (Optional)

Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Grease and flour the cake pan. Pour batter into the pan.

Bake 45 minutes at 350.

Recipe 3 follows closely to Recipe 2 but calls for the butter to be cold instead of melted and for 1 egg instead of 2 eggs and no baking powder. There is also a difference in the flour to buttermilk ratio. I didn't use the orange zest.

Recipe 3

4 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 cup raisins
1 3/4 cups cold buttermilk
4 tbsp sugar
1 egg, beaten
4 tbsp cold butter, cut into pieces
1 tsp grated orange zest (optional)

Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Put the dough on a well floured surface and knead until no longer super sticky. Place on a cookie sheet and slice the top lightly with an "X"

Bake 45 minutes at 375.

Broccoli Slaw

This is the broccoli slaw recipe from Smitten Kitchen. I loved this! It was refreshing and surprisingly light. 

I did use real buttermilk instead of my usual substitute (milk + white vinegar) because I wasn't sure of the flavor impact.

Next time I would add some dice chicken, or red cabbage or maybe sprinkle some crispy bacon pieces on top because...why not?! If I added more I would make more dressing too.

Broccoli Slaw

makes about 9 cups

2 heads of broccoli (florets and stems)
1/2 cup thinly sliced almonds or walnuts
1/3 - 1/2 cup dried cranberries or raisins
1/2 small red onion, finely chopped (about 1/4 cup)

Buttermilk Dressing:
1/2 cup buttermilk, well-shaken
1/3 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar

Salt & Pepper

Trim broccoli and cut into bite sized pieces using a knife, food processor, or mandolin slicer.

Toss the sliced broccoli with the almonds or walnuts, cranberries or raisins, and red onion in a large bowl (I used my largest cooking pot). 

In a small bowl, whisk all the dressing ingredients together. Pour the dressing over the broccoli and toss it well. Season with additional salt and pepper if you'd like.

Store in the fridge until ready to serve for up to a week.

No Bake Peanut Butter Granola Bites

Here are some easy no bake bite sized snacks! I looked at many different recipes for no bake granola bars including the recipes from How Sweet Eats, Smashed Peas and Carrots, and GranolaNola in order to come up with a combination that I would enjoy.  

I love granola and granola bars. I don't really like protein bars. They have this funny after taste. So here are some relatively healthy snacks to munch on while filling you up.

Some ideas: you can change the nuts in the recipe, change the peanut butter to almond butter or walnut butter or soy nut butter, add in raisins or dates or dried apricots, and any other fixin's until you would enjoy! 

Using the stand mixer combines the ingredients better than stirring with a spoon. It was hard to roll into balls by hand because it was sticky but it wasn't sticky enough to use the cookie scoop so I pushed the mixture into a mini muffin tin and let it chill overnight.
 
I put the ingredients in Recipes.Sparkpeople Calculator to see what the approximate nutrition of each bite. The findings were 127 Calories, 8 g Fat, 1.6 g Sat fat, 11.2 g Carbohydrates, 4.5 g Protein

I had to add in a lot of peanut butter this time because I added in extra oats.  The nutrition info above is based off of 1 cup of peanut butter.

Next time I will use less oats, I adjusted the recipe below from 1 1/2 cups of oats (which I had used) to 1 cup below. I think adding more honey will help the ingredients stay together better as well. I used less than the recommended 1/4 cup of honey, next time I would use the full 1/4 cup. I also want to try to add in a couple tbsp of protein powder, perhaps vanilla flavored? To maintain the correct consistency with adding in the protein powder I would in less dry ingredients (maybe even less oats?) and gradually add in the peanut butter/nut butter until it looks about right.

Update (4/7/2013) 
2 cups toppings*
+ 1 cup oats
+ 3/4 cup PB (or other nut butter)
+ 1/4 c honey (plus an addition tbsp or two if the texture isn't right)
= approx 24 mini muffin bites and 3 reg muffin bites

*toppings = chopped nuts (almonds, cashews, walnuts, peanuts) / seeds (sunflower, chia, ground flax) / dried fruit (apricots, raisins, craisins, etc) / dark chocolate / etc

All the stuff minus the pb, honey, and vanilla

Fill the mini muffin tins and then pop in the fridge

Yum!!

No Bake Peanut Butter Granola Bites
Makes 24 bites
 
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

½ cup ground flaxseed

2 tablespoons chia seeds

¼ cup of sunflower seeds

¼ teaspoon cinnamon

¼ cup raisins

2 tablespoons chopped dark chocolate 

¼ teaspoon vanilla extract 

½ to 1 cup creamy peanut butter, melted and slightly cooled (microwave about 30 seconds) 

¼ cup honey

Combine all the ingredients. Push the mixture into mini muffin tins and then put the tray in the fridge. Keep in a air tight container in the fridge to maintain freshness.

Enjoy!  

Pumpkin Muffins

I have been wanting to make these pumpkin muffins for a while. I found the recipe here. I was planning on following the recipe very closely, but, per usual I made some changes.

warm and melt-y with vanilla ice cream

The recipe calls for a heaping cup of pumpkin puree. However, this leaves about an inch of the puree in the can... so I decided to use the entire can. This means, 1) its a very moist muffin, 2) it made more muffins, and 3) when it was warm out of the oven with ice cream on top... it tasted like yummy, yummy, bread pudding. If you wanted to maintain the regular muffin consistency add an extra tablespoon of flour.

Also, I've never used evaporated milk. For those of you who are conversion challenged like I am, 1/2 cup of the milk is less than the 5 fl oz can. Unless you have other recipes that you are planning on making with the milk, the smallest can size will be sufficient.

I used regular raisins...because that was what I had in my baking cabinet.

Next time I would halve the "topping" that is sprinkled over the top, it just made a ton of the mixture.

The original recipe called for cream cheese frosting. I made these for part of my breakfast over the course of a week so frosting wouldn't be ideal. However, if I was making these for a brunch and people were going to be eating them all in the same day, I wouldn't hesitate to add the frosting. 

First I combined all dry ingredients.

Next I combined the wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Then added the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Add in raisins.

Fill muffin tins. These didn't rise as much, I'm guessing its because of the extra puree.

Voila!

 

Pumpkin Muffins

Makes approx 15 muffins

Muffin Ingredients:

1 cup All-purpose Flour

1/2 cup Sugar

2 teaspoons Baking Powder

1-1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon Ground Ginger

1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon Salt

4 Tablespoons Butter, cut into pieces

1 cup (heaping) Pumpkin Puree

1/2 cup Evaporated Mil

1 whole Egg

1-1/2 teaspoon Vanilla

1/2 cup Golden Raisins

Topping ingredients:

2 Tablespoons Sugar

1 teaspoon Cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon Nutmeg

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Generously grease or line muffin tins.

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt, pulse in food processor.

Cut in butter food processor until it is fully incorporated.

In a separate bowl, mix together pumpkin, evaporated milk, egg, and vanilla. Pour pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture. Add raisins. Fold until mixture is just combined.

Pour into muffin tins. ¾ full. Sprinkle topping onto each muffin.

Bake for 25 minutes. Let cool.

Happy Eating!