Guest Marian Stanley's Irish Soda Bread

Mystery Lovers' Kitchen is delighted to welcome author Marian Stanley with the perfect recipe for St. Patrick's Day!

VARIATIONS ON IRISH BREAD

I am partial to my mother’s Irish bread which is a cake-like white variety. My friend Jody often gifts us with a different one – a lovely Irish brown bread from her late husband Ed’s recipe. Our sister-in-law Kathleen makes a perfect traditional Irish soda bread but has no recipe for it. She just . . . does it. The very best part of the bread, says Kathleen, is the caila or the heel. I can’t find caila in the Gaelic dictionary. She doesn’t know how it should be spelled and why would that be important now, anyway? Perhaps it’s a County Louth term. In any case, Kathleen would be right – all that extra warm outer crust with sweet Irish butter is special.

Our friend Elaine brought a scrumptious soda bread over to our back door for Christmas too. The one we chose to share, however, is this one - called the Marilyn O’Reilly Soda Bread, by way of our daughter Katherine, who makes a delicious round. I couldn’t decide on which of these variations of Irish bread would be featured in my WIP, The Mariposa Circle, but I think it could be this one.

Served with a pot of Barry’s Irish tea – in the pot prepared beforehand with an extra rinse of hot water, sweet Irish butter and a good marmalade. I like Dundee.

IRISH SODA BREAD

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 tablespoons caraway seeds (optional)
1 cup raisins
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg


Directions:

Set rack in the middle level of the oven and preheat to 400 degrees.

In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir to mix.

Add butter and cut/rub in until butter disappears into the dry ingredients.

Stir in raisins and, if chosen, caraway seeds.

In a small bowl, mix together the buttermilk and egg. Mix into the dough mixture with a rubber spatula.

Turn the dough onto a floured surface and fold over on itself several times to make a round loaf. Transfer to a cookie sheet or jelly roll pan covered with aluminum foil and cut a cross on the top. 

Bake for 15 minutes and then reduce heat to 350 degrees and cook for about 15 or 20 minutes more, Toothpick test center.

Cool on a rack and serve with butter and marmalade.

Like her protagonist Rosaria in The Immaculate, Marian McMahon Stanley enjoyed a long international corporate career with a Fortune 500 company and, more recently, a senior position at a large, urban university in Boston. She is the mother of four adult children and a growing number of grandchildren. Marian writes in a small, bookish, historical town west of Boston and on Cape Ann in Gloucester, the nation’s oldest seaport. She lives with her husband Bill and — just as in the story — a Westie named Archie.

Buried Troubles is Marian's most recent book, and she's hard at work on the next, The Mariposa Circle.

Find out more on her website

Marian is giving away a copy of Buried Troubles. Just leave a comment below (with your email address), and answer the question, "Have you ever made Irish bread?"