.irish soda bread.

I adore bread and I especially adore Irish Soda Bread. It's made more like a big giant biscuit - using no yeast for leavening, but with, strangely, baking powder. The recipe I use comes from a book I picked up years ago called 100 Great Breads by Paul Hollywood. I have tweaked his recipe a little bit, but it's one that we like.

In a large bowl, mix together:

4 cups bread flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp sea salt

Cut in 1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter until the mixture is nice and crumbly and no big pieces of butter remain.

In another bowl, add 1 cup buttermilk, 1/3 cup milk, and 2 eggs. At this point, if you want golden raisins and/or caraway seeds, add them now. About 1 1/2 tsp of caraway seeds and 1/2 cup raisins. Whisk and add to the flour mixture. Using a fork, mix the wet into the dry until a dough begins to form. Using your hand, continue to work the dough until it pulls together and there's no more flour in the bottom of the bowl.

Dump contents onto a lightly floured counter. Split the dough in half and form into a nice smooth ball. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place each ball of dough on it. Take a sharp knife and score the tops of each mound with a criss cross.

Let sit for 20 minutes then pop into a well preheated 400* oven and bake for 30-40 minutes. The top of the bread should be beautifully browned. Remove from oven and let cool before serving.