Irish Soda Bread

I had never really heard of Irish soda bread until I became acquainted with the McLafferty family. Sean's mom always made it for St. Patrick's Day and passed her recipe onto me a few years ago. I started making it each St. Patrick's Day along with our corned beef dinner. We did confirm that corned beef dinner is not necessarily a traditional meal in Ireland for St. Patrick's Day (or any other day for that matter). They usually have a sort of boiled dinner with ham and vegetables. However, we love corned beef (and especially love the reuben sandwiches that follow) so we make it each year. I reviewed several different recipes for soda bread and tried a different one this year which has the same ingredients, but different measurements. The key ingredients are baking soda (given the name) which provides the leavening for the bread along with baking powder and raisins. I always use Sunmaid baking raisins, which I also use for my scones. Most soda bread recipes also call for including carraway seeds, but I really don't like the taste of them so I choose to leave them out.

Here is my dough that I've kneaded and formed into a round. I usually bake it on a baking stone that I grease with butter.

I melted butter to brush on top of the bread and score it with an X that allows it a natural place to crack when it bakes and also makes it easy to cut after baking.

This was how much had been eaten before we even sat down for our corned beef dinner. It was a hit, especially with Audrey. This morning, we enjoyed some leftover bread with strawberry jam.

Irish Coffee Cupcakes

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I wanted to make a fun dessert to adorn with my cute marzipan shamrocks and found this interesting Irish coffee cupcake recipe to try. My sister and I both get Martha Stewart Living and often try the different recipes and she brought this to my attention. I love coffee, love Irish cream and love cupcakes, so what's not to love with these?

Here are the secret ingredients. Bailey's Irish cream and instant espresso powder turn ordinary cupcakes into Irish coffee cupcakes!

While I had the espresso powder out and the water boiling, my mum and I decided to enjoy an espresso while I tried this recipe. It sure kept me alert through the rest of the day to stay up and decorate them!

I was excited to use my new curly Q baking cups from Bake It Pretty!

Here is the espresso infused cupcake batter. It looks like coffee, right? It sure tasted like coffee!

Here is the coffee batter in the cups and the nicely baked cupcakes just out of the oven.

Now we let them cool and waited a while to frost and decorate them.

The frosting was a simple whipped cream frosting made with heavy whipping cream and powdered sugar with a hint of Bailey's Irish cream. It has such a nice flavour!

I experimented with decorations and even tried to turn my Irish coffee cupcake into a mug with the addition of a partial fudge pretzel.

Some were topped with my marzipan shamrocks and others were dusted with espresso powder. They were not my favourite tasting cupcakes, but were perfect for the occasion and fun to make.

My First Attempt at Marzipan

Can you believe that you can start with almonds and sugar and end up with a creation like this? That's what I love about baking and pastry. You can use such simple ingredients and precisely mixed together with a bit of creativity, you can do amazing things that just happen to taste wonderful as well. All my family knows that I LOVE marzipan. Whether it's plain, sugar covered, fruit shaped, draped in chocolate or topping a cake, I have always liked the texture and lovely almond flavour of marzipan. In fact, I can't recall a Christmas when I haven't received marzipan in some form. However, I have never attempted making it myself and now was the time. It was fun and sure was an experience, but it was no easy feat.

Here are the ingredients I started with: blanched almonds, granulated sugar and powdered sugar. I used a full pound of each that I weighed on my kitchen scale. The glittery granulated sugar was so pretty with the bare blanched almonds and I was so excited to be trying to turn this into a smooth paste.

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The first step was to grid the almonds and sugar together in the food processor. It was ground finely and I was able to clump it together, but it was no paste. The recipe in my Marzipan book indicated to slowly add powdered sugar and knead it into a smooth paste. Easy, right? No.... After a LONG time of kneading, I needed a break! I reviewed other marzipan recipes online (the ones that do not require cooking it) and realized that I should probably add in some egg whites. So, that is what I did and I also turned to my trusty Kitchenaid mixer to help me do some kneading.

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After adding the egg whites and using the mixer, it was FINALLY coming together - yes! I created several small balls of marzipan at this point so it was easier to work with. I continued to knead it at this point, and put it on some plastic wrap to keep it moist and help it to stay together.

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After all the kneading, came the fun part - colouring it! I used my new gel paste food coloring and used green since it's just before St. Patrick's day and I'm out to make marzipan shamrocks.

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I added several drops, but wanted a brighter green, so we added more color. This was a happy process though now that we have our marzipan paste!

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Then, I rolled out the colored marzipan to the thickness I wanted and was ready to create shamrocks. But, I don't have a little shamrock cookie cutter. I tried to freehand the shamrocks, but they just didn't look good. So, I used a maple leaf cookie cutter and used a toothpick to push it out and keep it intact. Then, I cut off a few edges of the leaf shape and formed them into cute little shamrocks.

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Yeah - I did it! Not only was I able to create the paste and make something out of it, it tasted wonderful. I wrapped all the other marzipan in plastic wrap and foil and I'm attempting to freeze to see if I can thaw it later to use for more decorations. Get ready to top cupcakes you cute little shamrocks!