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!
Find out what's happening in Plum-Oakmontwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
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.
Find out what's happening in Plum-Oakmontwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
- Preheat over to 375, line baking sheets with greased wax paper.
- Cream butter and sugar.
- Add eggs and vanilla.
- Add sour cream.
- In a separate bowl, combine salt, soda, and flour.
- Add to wet mixture, and mix well.
- 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!
- 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.
- Refrigerate until more stiff.
- 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!
- Take some of another color and roll into a snack and drape it over the starting dough.
- Repeat with your colors.
- 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.
- Put cookies on baking sheet.
- Bake for 7 – 8 minutes. They won’t be brown or anything, just trust that they’re done…and delicious!