Guest Barbara Ross with Vee's Irish Soda Bread #giveaway

MADDIE DAY: I'm delighted to welcome my friend and Wicked Authors blogmate Barbara Ross to the Kitchen today! She has a yummy recipe from her recently released Irish novella in her uber-popular Maine Clambake Mysteries, and she's giving away a copy of the three-novella collection, Irish Coffee Murder. Take it away, Barb.

VEE’S IRISH SODA BREAD and a Giveaway

Thanks Mystery Lovers Kitchen for having me, and thank you Edith/Maddie for hosting. I’m giving away a copy of Irish Coffee Murder to one lucky commenter.

I was thrilled when my publisher, Kensington, asked me to write a novella for the Saint Patrick’s Day collection, Irish Coffee Murder, which also includes stories by Leslie Meier and Lee Hollis. The three of us have participated in four previous collections and my novellas are always third, so I knew there would be a recipe for Irish coffee in the book before most readers got to my contribution. (Especially since Lee Hollis’s series is the Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mystery series.) Luckily, I had an appropriate recipe up my sleeve, Marie Kent’s Irish soda bread.

In “Perked Up,” my story in Irish Coffee Murder, I gave the task of making the Irish soda bread to Maine Clambake series regular Vee Snugg. In the real world, the recipe comes from Marie Kent, my husband’s sister’s husband’s late mother (got it?). Though it sounds like a distant relationship, Marie and I attended holiday gatherings, weddings, showers, graduation parties, and funerals together for years, outliers in my husband’s huge Italian-American family. Marie was fiercely proud of her Irish heritage and never understood how she ended up in a family that drank gallons of coffee instead of tea. She is greatly missed.

Ingredients

3 1/3 cups flour

6 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup sugar

½ cup butter, softened

2 eggs, slightly beaten

¾ cup milk

1 cup raisins

Oil for greasing pan

 

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.

Work in butter with your hands until the mixture has the consistency of cornmeal.

Add raisins.

Whisk eggs and milk together, stir into dry mixture to blend.

 

Knead for two minutes.

Pat into a lightly oiled 9-inch cake pan.

Bake approximately one hour until crust is golden and toothpick comes out clean. Makes one loaf.

 

Enjoy! Don’t forget to comment (including your email address so we can reach you) for a chance to win a hardcover copy of Irish Coffee Murder.

About Irish Coffee Murder

You don’t need to be Irish to enjoy St. Patrick’s Day in Maine, where the chilly March weather offers the perfect excuse to curl up with an Irish coffee…But in these St. Patty’s-themed novellas by fan-favorite cozy mystery authors Leslie Meier, Lee Hollis, and Barbara Ross, someone may have spiked this year’s brew with murder!

Buy Links

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Your Independent Bookstore

 

Barbara Ross is the author of the Maine Clambake Mysteries. Her books have been nominated for multiple Agatha Awards for Best Contemporary Novel and have won the Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction. Barbara’s Maine Clambake novellas are included along with stories by Leslie Meier and Lee Hollis in holiday anthologies from Kensington Publishing. She also writes the Jane Darrowfield Mysteries. Barbara and her husband live in Portland, Maine. Visit her website at www.maineclambakemysteries.com

 

 

 

Thanksgiving Irish Cranberry Bread

Once again the American holiday of Thanksgiving rolls around and finds me out of the country, in Ireland. Having two very separate main branches to my family tree gets confusing: on my mother’s side, I can go back to the Mayflower, and one great-great-whatever managed the first grist mill in Plymouth; on my father’s side, it’s almost all dairy farmers in Cork and Carlow.

This year I’ve become the proud owner of a small Irish cottage in West Cork, in sight of where generations of my ancestors lived. It’s not ancient—probably built in the mid 20th century—but it still has a cast iron cook stove, which originally doubled as heating for the main sitting area. I’m guessing it’s still functional and it burns solid fuel: coal, wood, peat, and for all I know, household trash. Looking at it, I can understand why the Irish bake so much soda bread, both light and dark. I think it’s a safe bet that the temperature of the oven is a bit inconsistent, but soda bread is very forgiving. I’m looking forward to trying the oven out, after a good scrubbing.

Traditional Irish soda bread contains raisins or currants. As a nod to my American side, I’m swapping those for dried cranberries. After all, the corporate HQ of Ocean Spray is literally right down the road where I live, and I believe in buying local.



Cranberry Soda Bread

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups dried cranberries
4 cups unbleached flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
6 Tblsp granulated sugar
6 Tblsp cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1-1/2 cups buttermilk
2 egg yolks
1 Tblsp Irish whiskey (optional, but this one comes from West Cork!))

2 Tblsp. crystallized sugar for sprinkling


Instructions:

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Put the cranberries into a bowl and pour boiling water over them to soften for a few minutes. Drain.

Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and 6 Tblsp. sugar.

Blend in the butter with pastry blender, a pair of knives, or your fingers, until pea-sized bits form.

In another bowl, whisk together buttermilk, egg yolks and whiskey if you’re using it (you could substitute vanilla extract if you like). Pour the liquids over the flour mixture and scatter the cranberries on top. With a wooden spoon, stir the mixture to form a moist dough. Knead the dough lightly in the bowl for 15 seconds.

On a lightly floured counter or board, divide the dough in half. Form each half into a rounded half-ball measuring 5-5 1/2 inches in diameter. 

Place each ball on the lined baking sheet, 5" apart. With a small sharp knife, slash the top with a cross. Sprinkle the top of each loaf with crystallized sugar.

Bake for 40 minutes or until the loaves are golden. Transfer to wire racks and let cool for 30 minutes. Serve with plenty of good Irish butter (try Kerrygold—I may have met some of the cows that contributed to that butter).

You Can Celebrate Thanksgiving Anywhere!

Coming in March 2017: Cruel Winter, the fifth book in the County Cork mystery series. There is a lot of new snow on the ground in West Cork, and an old crime to solve . . .

www.sheilaconnolly.com

Irish Brown Bread

by Sheila Connolly

I've been racking my brain for any memories of Easter family dinners, but so far all I've come up with is chocolate.  Lots of chocolate.  I suppose my sister and I were too stuffed with bunny ears and foil-wrapped eggs and jelly beans and the like to eat much at the table.  I do, however, have a fond memory of my engineer father trying to drill holes in eggs with his electric drill so we could empty them, with mixed results.

Brown bread, or arán donn in Irish, is a staple of Irish meals, everywhere in the country. It appears from breakfast to dinner, usually accompanied by butter. It does not contain yeast, and any rising comes from the chemical interaction of buttermilk and baking soda.  It's quick to make, and it should be eaten the same day as it's baked.

I have been trying to make it on my own—and I've been having little luck.  I've collected, at last count, thirteen recipes, from Irish cookbooks (both high-end and pub food, and including one from the famous Ballymaloe cooking school in County Cork), friends, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and the back of the Irish wholemeal flour package.  Guess what:  they're all different. No two alike. (And I'm not even counting the one from my former Irish teacher, an lovely older woman from Connemara, who doesn't even measure her ingredients.)

How can there be so much confusion about something that in its simplest form contains all of five ingredients?  The basic recipe has:  wholemeal flour (preferably coarse and stone-ground—Odlum's is the favored Irish brand, available by mail order), white flour, baking soda, salt, and buttermilk.  You combine the dry ingredients, make a puddle of buttermilk in the middle, and mix with your hands (but not too much or it gets tough).  Shape it into a round loaf, cut a cross in the top, and bake in a hot oven.  That's it.

In a perfect universe, maybe.  Me, I've ended up with a lot of chewy, doughy lumps. Great exercise for the jaw.

Then many sources start adding things to the basic recipe:  oat bran, oatmeal (both rolled oats and steel-cut), sugar, brown sugar, eggs, butter, honey or molasses.  Suggested cooking temperatures range from 375 to 450, in one stage or two.  And the proportions of wholemeal flour (which really does make a difference—using regular brown flour is definitely not the same) to white flour are all over the map too:  ratios range from  1:2 to 3:1 brown to white. The average ratio is just under 2:1 brown to white flour, but given the consistency of the Odlum's wholemeal flour, I'd tip it toward 1 1/2 to 1 (and the Odlum's package agrees; Ballymaloe pushes it even closer to half and half).

Irish Brown Bread (1 large loaf)

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

3 cups wholemeal flour

2 1/2 cups white flour

1/4 tsp of salt

1 tsp baking soda

2 cups (full fat) buttermilk (plus more if needed)

Whisk together the dry ingredients in a large bowl.  Make a well in the middle and pour in the buttermilk.  Mix quickly with your hands just until blended (overwork it and it will get gluey), adding more buttermilk if needed.  The dough should not be too sticky.

Make the dough into a ball and place it on a an ungreased baking sheet. Flatten it until it is about 2" thick.  With a sharp knife make a cross in the top (do not cut through).  Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 400 degrees and continue baking until done (you'll know it's done when it sounds hollow when you tap it). 

Cool on a rack.  Serve with lots of butter! (It's good with blackberry jam too.)

I wish I could tell you that this is the perfect recipe, but it's still not quite there (not gummy this time, but rather crunchy).  If anyone out there has a treasured recipe for Irish soda bread, I'll be happy to add it to my collection!

Sweet Coffee-Glazed Mini Scones and a St. Pat's Cat from Cleo Coyle

My husband, Marc, and I made a new friend this past weekend. On St. Patrick's day, an abandoned kitten, about six months old, was obviously lost and hungry and mewing piteously for hours. 

Cleo Coyle, who loves cats
in (and out of) hats,
is author of The Coffeehouse
Mysteries

No one came to his aid, so we took him in, fed him, and got him to our local vet. He's doing fine and will soon be the newest member of our New York stray cat crew. I'll have photos and more news soon, but we're so pleased the little guy found us--and on St. Patrick's Day!

The video below is not mine, but when I saw it uploaded to YouTube, I thought of our new kitten and decided to share it in honor of our St. Pat's cat. Enjoy!

I also did a bit o' baking over the St. Patrick's Day weekend. As usual, I made my "Shamrock" Pistachio Muffins. (I love these babies. The batter tastes like pistachio ice cream and the ricotta adds nice moistness to the muffin, along with additional nutrition. And, of course, they're green. :))

I also baked up some sweet mini soda breads or are they buttermilk scones? You be the judge. I threw in some mini chocolate chips and tarted them up with a quick coffee glaze. Delicious slathered with butter and served with tea or coffee, just be sure to eat them warm. Cold they're not so hot, but warm they're a nice breakfast bread.

Cleo Coyle's
Coffee-Glazed 
Mini Soda Bread Scones


This is an easy, sweet breakfast bread. The recipe is based on your basic Irish soda bread. With the addition of sugar and chocolate chips, it's really more of a buttermilk scone. They're easy to make and quite tasty when eaten warm with a cup o' tea or (of course...) coffee. ~ Cleo


Makes about 16 mini soda bread scones


2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons Kosher salt
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
1 cup buttermilk (light is fine)


First preheat your oven to 400 degrees F. Measure out all dry ingredients into a mixing bowl. Pour in your 1 cup of buttermilk. Stir it up. When the mixture comes together, use a clean hand to finish mixing and kneading it in the bowl until you have a sticky ball. Break off golf ball size pieces and place them on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake in a preheated oven for 10 to 12 minutes. Pour your coffee or tea and serve warm, slathered with butter. For an extra sweet finish, glaze them up.


Quick Coffee Glaze


Using a fork, whisk 2 tablespoons of hot brewed coffee (or espresso) into 1 cup of sifted confectioners' sugar. With that same fork, drizzle the tops of the mini scones. 


NOTE: These are delicious warm, not so hot cold, so be warned. :)

F o o d i e
P  H O T O S

             

Eat with joy!

~ Cleo Coyle, author of

The Coffeehouse Mysteries

To get more recipes, enter to win
free coffee, or learn about my books, including
my bestselling Haunted Bookshop series, visit my online coffeehouse: CoffeehouseMystery.com

The Coffeehouse Mysteries are national bestselling

culinary mysteries set in a landmark Greenwich Village 

coffeehouse, and each of the ten titles includes the 

added bonus of recipes. 

 

The Ghost and
Mrs. McClure

Book #1 of 
The Haunted Bookshop
Mysteries, which Cleo writes
under the name Alice Kimberly
To learn more, click here.

MURDER 203

Quick reminder to our Mystery Lovers Kitchen audience: Cleo Coyle and Lucy Burdette are appearing at MURDER 203!

If you're attending the MURDER 203 festival of mystery next month in Easton, Connecticut, be sure to stop by and say hi. You can register in advance or walk in the same day. More info about the conference here.

See you there!

THE BREAD OF IRELAND

by Sheila Connolly


I’ve just returned from a trip to Ireland—purely research, of course, because I’ll be writing a new series set in Co. Cork, which will debut in 2012.  It’s so new the series doesn’t even have a name, much less the first book.

But I know where it’s going to take place:  in the small village (population hovering just over 200, which was about where it was 150 years ago) of Leap.  My father’s father was born a few miles from there, in one of the tiny townlands inland from Leap. 

Leap takes its name from “Donovan’s Leap.”  The Donovans were the local rulers going back centuries, and as the story goes, one of them escaped a pack of pursuing Englishman by forcing his horse to leap over a large gully cut by a stream that flows into the harbor there (having taken a look at the gully, I have great respect for that horse--or for the power of Irish story-telling!).  The village is considered the gateway to The Wild West of Cork.

I’ve been to Ireland before, but not in the last decade.  This trip was not for sightseeing, but to pay attention to and absorb the sights, sounds, and even smells of the area.  To listen to the people talking.  To take lots of pictures.  To see how Ireland is handling its all-too-brief surge of prosperity, followed by a devastating crash that has left the county close to bankrupt.

Irish food has improved considerably in the past decade or two.  There are still examples of watery cabbage-and-ham stew, and even flavorless Irish lamb stew, but as in many places, attention has been paid to fresh local produce, and local fish and meat. The local supermarket stocks an admirable selection of fresh fish and meats, plus local organic fruits and vegetables.

But one thing that doesn't change is the traditional Irish soda bread, maybe because it’s so variable to begin with—everyone has her own recipe, and half the time nobody even measures the ingredients.  It comes in brown (great with local smoked salmon and Irish butter) and white.

Here’s a recipe that I’ve been making for years.

4 cups flour

4 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

3/4 tsp. salt

6 Tblsp. granulated sugar

1 1/4 tsp. nutmeg

6 Tblsp. unsalted butter, cold, cut into chunks

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

2 egg yolks

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups dried currants

2 Tblsp. crystallized sugar for sprinkling on top

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Put the currants into a bowl and pour boiling water over them to soften for a few minutes.  Drain the currants.

Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, 6 Tblsp. sugar, and nutmeg.

Blend in the butter with pastry blender, a pair of knives, or your fingers, until pea-sized bits form.

In another bowl, whisk together buttermilk, egg yolks and vanilla.  Pour liquids over the flour mixture and scatter raisins on top.  With a wooden spoon, stir the mixture to form a moist dough.  Flour your hands and knead the dough lightly in the bowl for 15 seconds.

On a lightly floured counter or board, divide the dough in half.  Form each half into a well-domed ball measuring 5-5 1/2 inches in diameter. 

Place each ball on the baking sheet, 5" apart.  With a small sharp knife, slash the top with a cross.  Sprinkle the top of each ball with crystallized sugar.

Bake for 40 minutes or until the loaves are set and golden. 

Transfer to wire racks and let cool for 30 minutes.  Serve with or without butter.