Irish Soda Bread Is Baked

The Irish Soda Bread is now out of the oven and being eaten...  and it is very good, as always!

This really is easy to make but it gets a bit frustrating when mixing of the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients.  The dough gets so sticky and thick that it is difficult to mix and handle.  It sticks to everything!  You mix it with a big wooden spoon and you end up with more on the spoon than in the bowl.  If you knead it with your hands, you quickly have nothing left to knead because the dough is completely sticking to and covering your hands.  You end up spending a lot of time effort getting the dough from your spoon, your hands and the bowl into the springform pan.  

It is good though!

I have already put the corned beef in the oven and started prepping dinner.  

This time I added dried cranberries as well as the usual golden raisins.  We'll see how we like it with the cranberries added.  I usually soak the golden raisins in bourbon or rum but we don't have any in the house right now so the golden raisins are not soaked for some extra flavor this year...

I made a sweet butter that has brown sugar, honey, cinnamon, nutmeg, and a tiny bit of ginger mixed into a softened stick of butter.  This goes very well with the Irish Soda Bread...

And, the first slice of the day, warm and right out of the oven...  it was good!

I'm looking forward to the corned beef, cabbage, potatoes and carrots.  I could eat this meal every week.  We actually purchased a second corned beef so I can make some fresh corned beef hash.  That is really good for breakfast!  I'll make that on a different day either sometime this weekend or next weekend.