Irish Soda Bread Muffins....delicious

From the King Arthur website. Yum. They are quite good, especially with strawberry preserves.

Also posted in The Recipe Exchange:  http://www.thecatsite.com/t/238185/breads-quick-and-yeast#post_3964283

IRISH SODA BREAD MUFFINS

1-1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

3/4 cup 100% white whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1-1/2 cups currants (first choice) or raisins

1/2 to 2 teaspoons caraway seeds, to taste

1 large egg

1 cup buttermilk, yogurt, or sour cream

6 tablespoons butter, melted; or 1/3 cup vegetable oil

Sparkling white sugar, for topping (Is optional, but you can buy this at the King Arthur website)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly grease a standard muffin pan; or line with papers, and grease the papers.

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar, currants or raisins, and caraway seeds.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg, buttermilk (or equivalent) and melted butter (or equivalent).

Quickly and gently combine the dry and wet ingredients; honestly, this won't take more than a few stirs with a bowl scraper or large spoon. As soon as everything is evenly moistened, quit; further stirring will cause the muffins to be tough.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan, filling the cups about 3/4 full; the stiff batter will look mounded in the cups. Top with sparkling white sugar, if desired.

Bake the muffins for 20 minutes, until a cake tester inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Remove them from the oven. Tip the muffins in the pan, so their bottoms don't get soggy. Wait 5 minutes, then transfer the muffins to a rack to cool. Serve them plain, or with butter and/or jam.

Note:  I got 16 muffins, but one of my cupcake pans is a little on the small side. I used buttermilk (I freeze buttermilk in 1-cup containers so that I have it when I need it). And I used raisins.

This sounds really good. I love this type of bread but whenever I buy it, we wind up throwing most of it out.  Just too much for 2.

Muffins would be much better.

BTW thanks for the buttermilk/freezing tip.  I always wind up with too much of that also and down the sink it goes. I had no idea it would freeze ok!

I am normally not a fan of this bread.. but my coworker made it and I tried some.. OMG so good. I guess home made tastes tons better than store bought!

This is the first year I didn't bake Irish soda bread for St. Patrick's Day--I was so busy, I didn't have time. Here's a beer bread recipe that I adapted to use hard (alcoholic) apple cider. I never tried the beer version. I made this in muffin form. I served it with shepherd's pie for my customers in the restaurant (it was a St. Patrick's Day special--individual meat pies, topped with mashed potatoes, and a cider muffin with butter).

3 c. sifted flour

3 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1/4 c. sugar

1 12 oz. bottle of Angry Orchard (Crisp) hard cider

1/4 c. melted butter

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Mix dry ingredients and cider
3. *Pour into a greased loaf pan.
4. Pour melted butter over mixture.
5. Bake 1 hour, remove from pan and cool for at least 15 minutes.

*For muffins, grease muffin tins. I used my big muffin cup tins. This made about 8-10 large muffins. I don't know how many "normal" sized muffins it makes. It makes a tart, slightly sour moist bread/muffin. Excellent with sweet butter, such as Land O'Lakes.

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sivyaleah said:

 
This sounds really good. I love this type of bread but whenever I buy it, we wind up throwing most of it out.  Just too much for 2.

Muffins would be much better.

BTW thanks for the buttermilk/freezing tip.  I always wind up with too much of that also and down the sink it goes. I had no idea it would freeze ok!

Click to expand...

My MIL told me about freezing buttermilk. It's too expensive to just throw it away. I buy powdered buttermilk, but that just goes into one large clump and it's a pain to try to de-clump it. So I've started buying a quart every so often if I need it for something. Then I just freeze the remainder in 1-cup containers. I keep the buttermilk in the refrigerator freezer so that it's easily accessible.

I make muffins often. Biscuits and rolls, too, more so than a full loaf of bread.Rick likes to take muffins in his lunch for his morning break as they're something a little sweet for that sweet tooth of his.

I was just reading about Irish soda bread the other day. I'll have to try these recipes. I'd prefer muffin sized to a large loaf when trying out something new.

By the way, you can freeze butter for using in dough recipes. Works really well when you need cold butter. You just grate in into the dough.