Jessica, Author at JessicaMWhite.com

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!

Here is the Best Irish Soda Bread recipe, from the Irish Heritage cookbook. I kind of consider myself an expert on soda bread. I’ve tried numerous different recipes, here and across the pond, but this has been my favorite.

The Best Irish Soda Bread Recipe from @JessicaMWhite.com

The Best Irish Soda Bread Recipe

4 cups flour

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 eggs

1 1/4 cup buttermilk

1/4 cup melted butter

1 cup golden raisins

1 tsp caraway seeds (optional)

Combine dry ingredients (including raisins and caraway seeds). Add in eggs, buttermilk, and oil: Stir until thoroughly mixed. Bake at 350* for 35-/+ minutes.

There are few ways to bake this bread:

1) You can either do it as a free form bread (meaning just pile it up on the center of a greased cookie sheet) and make one large (or two smaller), slightly flatter, loaves

2) Use a greased 9″ spring form pan….this will take longer to bake, closer to 50-60 minutes, but will give you a large, round, slightly higher loaf

3) Split the dough between 2 – 8″ layer cake pans and bake 30-40 minutes, this will give you 2 smaller but round loaves.

Enjoy!

This year I just don’t have it in me. I’m not even sure why, but the whole idea of hours of baking and decorating and getting the house Christmas-ified is just daunting. I’m excited for Christmas, but the Christmas I’m excited about is a quiet, small
Christmas…a Christmas that’s more about a barn than bedlam.

So what am I doing for Christmas?

We got our tree this past Sunday and I put it up with lights on Monday, during nap time. We’ve hung one paper ornament on it and I’m not sure how much more will go on it. The tree is beautiful as it is. Our nativity is up, and so are the stockings. My village isn’t making the trek to the piano this year {it would be way too much work to keep James and Elanor away from it}.

I don’t want our Christmas to be a season of “No! Don’t touch! We look with our eyes, not our hands.” I want it to be a season of love and gentleness, a season of exploring, without the fear of breaking some thing. We have 3 two year olds this Christmas, you can imagine the exploration that will be going on!

We’re sticking with our 3 gifts policy: A book, a gift from Santa, and a gift from Mommy and Daddy. Matt and I even have taken a restricted policy on gifting between us, not because the budget is tight {whose isn’t?!}, but because there isn’t anything we need or want badly enough. There’s no point in buying a gift just because you have to buy something.

I’m only baking 5 or 6 types of Christmas cookie, instead of my usual 12 or 13. The idea of hours in the kitchen, getting frustrated with little hands that want to help, just doesn’t make that appealing to me. All of the cookies that I bake, will more than likely be hand-delivered to our neighbors over the next few weeks.

Christmas cards? Yes, I’ll do those, but only because I absolutely love sending and receiving Christmas cards {want me to send you one?} Christmas lights outside? I have candles in the window, does that count?

As for the tree….we’ll see what happens. We may just end up with our Truth in the Tinsel ornaments on there, and the ornaments that came with The Greatest Gift. And you know what, I think I’m ok with that.