Irish Soda Bread

This is my first time participating in an internet bake along. I have seen a number of different groups such as The Secret Recipe Club, French Fridays with Dorie, etc. and thought it would be fun to join in. However, I am basically a chicken. What if I fail to make the recipe correctly? What if I take a horrible picture? What if I miss the deadline and get kicked out of the group? What if I make the wrong thing? What if I am totally INCAPABLE? What if my oven blows up?

I’m not sure why I have so many insecurities…maybe it is because I was hit by a car when I was three years old. It was kind of like one of those road runner cartoons. Wile E. Coyote looks both ways up and down the road and there are no vehicles in sight, so he starts to cross the road and WHAM, he gets hit by an Acme truck. That’s pretty much how I got hit by a car.

My mom, who was about 7 months pregnant and was holding my little brother in one arm and a bag of groceries in the other arm, looked up and down the street in front of the little grocery store in our small town. There were no cars coming, so Mom told me to run across the street to our car. I was about halfway across the street when WHAM, I got hit by a car.  We are not certain where the car had been when my Mom had looked up and down the street, but the bottom line is that I ended up with a laceration by my left eye, a fractured skull, and a concussion.

The most tragic part of the whole thing, at least from my three year old perspective, was that for several months I was not allowed to play on swings, or go down the slide, or run around, or jump on the bed, or do anything that was remotely fun because it might cause me to sustain further head injuries. I was consigned to coloring and playing with paper dolls. Life was soooooooooo boring.

Anyway, I guess I learned at a very young age about ‘what ifs’. But, recently I saw a quote on Pinterest by Martin Luther, the founder of the Lutheran religion. He is credited with saying, “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree today.” I have thought about that quote a lot and decided that it was time for me to start planting some apple trees, so to speak.

This bread was a great way to make some positive steps forward. I am joining in with Tuesdays With Dorie/Baking with Julia. Twice a month we will be baking an assigned recipe from the book Baking With Julia, written by Dorie Greenspan. The posts are to be presented with pictures of the featured item and links to two blogs for the recipe. If you would like the recipe for this Irish Soda Bread, please visit either of the following links: Chocolate Moosey or My Culinary Mission.

I have some Irish roots, so it was fun to make something from Ireland. This bread was so incredibly simple to make, with just four ingredients: flour, salt, baking soda, and buttermilk. I did take the liberty of adding currants which gave a nice sweetness to the bread. It does not keep well, so plan on eating it shortly after baking. Yesterday it was quite tasty. Today, not so much, but it does make good toast. (I LOVE toast!)