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Health & Fitness

Get Set Sunday: Happy St. Patty's Day!

St. Patrick's Day goodies for the week!

by Erin at SlimSavers.com

I’m Irish…duh. This year, I wanted to do something exciting for the kid, but all I came up with was a little leprechaun pee in the potty and some baking.

Yay for baking!

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Though we didn’t make anything “healthy,” we still made our St. Patrick’s Day goodies from scratch. (Michael Pollan’s 39th rule says I can eat all the junk I want as long as I made it!)

For this week, we have rainbow cookies and Irish Soda bread.

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Irish Soda Bread

From Martha Stewart

I made this exactly how she told me to because why question Martha?

Ingredients

  • 4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 2 tablespoons caraway seeds
  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold
  • 2 cups golden or dark raisins
  • 1 1/2 scant cups buttermilk
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 large egg yolk
  • 1 tablespoon heavy cream

Directions

  1. Heat oven to 350. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and caraway seeds until well combined.
  2. Using a pastry cutter or two knives in scissor fashion, cut in butter until the mixture feels like coarse meal. Stir in raisins until evenly distributed.
  3. In a small bowl, whisk together buttermilk, egg, and baking soda until well combined. Pour buttermilk mixture into the flour-and-butter mixture all at once, and stir with a fork until all the liquid is absorbed and the mixture begins to hold together. It should resemble a rough biscuit dough. Using your hands, press the dough into a round, dome-shaped loaf about 8 inches in diameter. Lift the loaf from the bowl, and transfer it to the prepared baking sheet.
  4. In a small bowl, mix the egg yolk and cream together. With a pastry brush, brush the egg wash over the loaf. With a sharp knife or razor, incise a cross, about 1/2 inch deep, into the top of the loaf. Transfer to the oven. Bake, rotating halfway through, until it is deep golden brown and a wooden skewer comes out clean when inserted into the center, about 70 minutes. Remove from oven, and transfer bread from the baking sheet to a wire rack to cool.

Rainbow Cookies

I used the video tutorial at Parents.com as inspiration and a guide, but instead of using pre-made sugar cookie dough (icky!), I used the following recipe from Peppermint Plum. They make a nice soft, poofy cookie that’s YUMMY! My son LOVED making these!

Ingredients

  • 1 cup butter
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 3 tsp. vanilla
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 2 tsp. baking soda
  • 5 1/2 cups flour
  • food coloring
  • wax paper
  • flour for dusting

Directions

  1. Preheat over to 375, line baking sheets with greased wax paper.
  2. Cream butter and sugar.
  3. Add eggs and vanilla.
  4. Add sour cream.
  5. In a separate bowl, combine salt, soda, and flour.
  6. Add to wet mixture, and mix well.
  7. When well mixed, separate into how ever many equal portions you want from the colors you picked. I did four and kept one plain because mixing the colors was a pain in the butt!
  8. Color each section of dough the desired color. This dough is sticky! I used the handle of a heavy spoon to mix the stuff…and get an arm workout.
  9. Refrigerate until more stiff.
  10. When ready, take some dough from the color you want to be the middle/starting point of the rainbow and roll into a ball, then smoosh it a little on floured wax paper. Don’t use a lot of flour!
  11. Take some of another color and roll into a snack and drape it over the starting dough.
  12. Repeat with your colors.
  13. When done, put a piece of wax paper over and, with a rolling pin, roll the rainbow a little so all the colors stick together.
  14. Put cookies on baking sheet.
  15. Bake for 7 – 8 minutes. They won’t be brown or anything, just trust that they’re done…and delicious!
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