Sweet Irish Soda Bread

A great way to celebrate St. Paddy's Day on March 17th is to have this Irish soda bread for breakfast.  It's a sweet simple quick bread loaded with plump moist raisins. I did only have one cup of raisins in the pantry so it would have looked tons better with the additional cup of raisins. I think the taste and texture is a cross between sweet bread and traditional bread. This recipe makes a large 9x5 loaf and it's yummy.

Traditional savory Irish soda bread used only flour, baking soda, salt, buttermilk, and sometimes raisins. This particular recipe uses baking powder, which contains baking soda. This recipe comes from mostlyhomademon.com and is sure to please even if you're not Irish. Thanks mostlyhomemademom.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.


Ingredients

2 cups raisins (must boil per directions to make them plump and moist)
3 cups flour
1 cup sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder (baking powder contains baking soda, hence the name soda bread)
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups milk
2 eggs

Directions

Fill a saucepan half way with water and bring to a boil. Add raisins and continue boiling for 3 minutes. Drain and dust with flour.

Meanwhile, sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add shortening using a pastry blender or your fingers. It will be mealy.

Whisk or stir in milk and eggs until fully moistened. Mix until fluffy like pancake batter.

Carefully stir in raisins until combined.

Spread into loaf pan 9X5 that has been sprayed with non-stick spray and bake on 350 degrees for 1 hour.

When bread is baked leave in pan for 15 minutes and then gently turn out on to cooling rack and allow to cool completely before serving. We did taste it warm with butter and it was yummy but I think I need a new bread knife because it was a little crumbly so slice it gently.