Tuesdays with Dorie - Irish Soda Bread

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie was Irish Soda Bread, just in time for St Patrick's Day.

Now I love Soda Bread so I was looking forward to making this.

As usual I halved the recipe as I didn't think I'd need all of it. The recipe did say that it only lasts for the day so I didn't see the point in making a big loaf. In any event Mr DJ was away this weekend so it was just me and Miss. It turned out half of the recipe was just perfect (and only took one pot of buttermilk).

The dough took no time to whip up and all it needed was a bowl, no need for the mixer.

You then cut a cross in the top of the dough to let the fairies out or some other nonsense. Here is mine on my greaseproof sheet.

As it used half the recipe I kept an eye on the bread and only cooked it for 40 minutes. Here is the finished product. It was so lovely, all got eaten. I had mine on it's own with a huge amount of butter (for research purposes obviously!) and also with some lovely strong cheese for lunch.

Tuesdays with Dorie - Rugelach

I've no idea how to pronounce it but these were lovely.

They are basically a type of pastry, I believe they are Jewish but I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong. The starting point was the dough, nothing like pastry or even bread dough, something totally different, made with half butter and half cream cheese. Quick and fairly easy to make in my mixer although important that the ingredients were room temperature and not at all cold.

The dough then had to be chilled in the fridge for a few hours so I left mine in there overnight before rolling and filling. The next day I made my filling, sugar nuts and fruit, what a combination. I did half of the recipe and it just fitted in my mini chopper. (I love my mini chopper, my mother-in-law bought it for me and I use it all the time. It is one of my favourite presents, so handy for so many things.)

The dough is rolled you need to spread it with Levkar. I had no idea what this was but a quick google revealed it was like jam so I decided to use jam. I know it's lazy and I could have looked up how to make it but I've had bad jam experiences before so thought mine was best coming from a jar. So dough rolled and spread with my jam the recipe said to roll from the long end. I presumed that this was wrong and so rolled from the short end (obviously because I think I know best!)

Here is a pic of them rolled up, one by me one by my daughter, I will leave you to guess which one is which!

So they were short and fat and full of loveliness. They then go in the fridge for a few more hours to chill before slicing and baking but before you bake them you sprinkle more of the sugar mixture on the top.

And here they are, the finished product. The recipe said it makes loads and described them as cookies, mine made 10 and they were more like danish pastries so I clearly did roll from the wrong end! If Paul Hollywood of the Great British Bake Off fame was here he would say "someone didn't read the recipe correctly". I did read it, I just decided it was wrong - oops sorry Dorie.

They were lovely that size my husband particularly loved them and has asked for them again. The jam and the filling was lovely and went all chewy on the bottom. They were not the most attractive pastries but made up for it with their lovely flavour. A winner for us.