Soda Bread

Yes, we made Irish soda bread today. (Thanks to Huw's suggestion of substituting a soy product for a dairy product.) The "big" boy and I assembled all the ingredients, put an Icon of St. Patrick on the table, offered thanks to God for sending St. Patrick to our ancestors and for letting us make the bread in his honor. ("Why did you do that, Daddy?" "Because, if it had not been for Patrick, we might not be Christians today.") We measured, mixed, kneaded, and baked. The big boy helped at every stage. He is very good ad "dumping out" the ingredients into the mixing bowl. We cut a cross on the top of the dough just before putting it in the oven. We kissed it, of course. How sappy can you get??!! When my wife reads this she'll probably think I'm nuts. It tastes pretty good. Below is the recipe modified from Julia Child's recipe found in the book Baking With Julia.

Ingredients:
4 Cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking flour
1.5 teaspoons salt
2 cups vanilla soy milk (substitution)
handfull of raisins (not in the original recipe)

Preheat oven to 375 F
Grease a pie pan (I like using canola oil for this) and set it aside until later.

Put flour, soda, and salt in to a large mixing bowl and stir with a fork to thouroughly blend the dry ingredients. Add soy milk and stir with much gusto until the dough comes together in to a moist ballish kind of thing. It will not look tidy like pie dough but will definately look like dough. Stir in the raisins. Dump the dough on to a lightly floured table and knead vigoursly for 1 minute, but do not overwork he dough. Pat the ball of dough in to a think hocky puck with a diameter of about 6 inches. Place the dough in the center of your pie pan. (It won't touch the sides. Don't worry about that.) Cut a cross in the top: Two 4" long x 1/2" deep strokes of the knife should do the trick. Pop it into the preheated oven for about 50 minutes. Take it out of the oven and let it cool to just above room temperature before slicing. It is very good for dunking and as a platform for spreadables. Goes good with black coffee.