Oh my goodness Kathleen, I finally had a chance to be at home long enough to make this bread today. WOW!! It is deeeelish!! DH walked in from work about 3 minutes after I took it out of the oven and we sat down with butter and this bread and ate almost one whole loaf!!!! Anyone who hasn't made it yet needs to get busy!! You don't know what you are missing. The only thing I changed was the sugar. DH is a borderline diabetic and I used not quite 1 cup of Splenda instead of the sugar. Yum oh! Thanks for sharing this recipe with us. Betty

Reporting back VERY late here. Life in general and business challenges have taken up much of my free time over the last week. Thanks for all the recipes for both the bread and desserts. I did send out a few emails too. Alexa had the recipe that I made last year so I went with that one again. I'll be trying some of the others too. I forgot how good this simple bread is. I love the idea of cupcakes Katie. Here is my results and the recipe. I might have cut that cross pattern a little deep. LOL Sunday Best Irish Soda Bread by Martha Stewart 1 loaf By adding egg, sugar, caraway seeds, and butter to a traditional Irish soda bread recipe, you create a loaf that is fit for a Sunday breakfast or brunch. Wrapped well with plastic wrap, it can be stored at room temperature until the last crumb is eaten. Like all Irish soda breads, this freezes well. 4 cups all-purpose flour 1/4 cup sugar 1 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons baking powder 2 tablespoons caraway seeds 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold 2 cups golden or dark raisins 1 1/2 scant cups buttermilk 1 large egg 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 large egg yolk 1 tablespoon heavy cream Heat oven to 350�. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and caraway seeds until well combined. Using a pastry cutter or two knives in scissor fashion, cut in butter until the mixture feels like coarse meal. Stir in raisins until evenly distributed. In a small bowl, whisk together buttermilk, egg, and baking soda until well combined. Pour buttermilk mixture into the flour-and-butter mixture all at once, and stir with a fork until all the liquid is absorbed and the mixture begins to hold together. It should resemble a rough biscuit dough. Using your hands, press the dough into a round, dome-shaped loaf about 8 inches in diameter. Lift the loaf from the bowl, and transfer it to the prepared baking sheet. In a small bowl, mix the egg yolk and cream together. With a pastry brush, brush the egg wash over the loaf. With a sharp knife or razor, incise a cross, about 1/2 inch deep, into the top of the loaf. Transfer to the oven. Bake, rotating halfway through, until it is deep golden brown and a wooden skewer comes out clean when inserted into the center, about 70 minutes. Remove from oven, and transfer bread from the baking sheet to a wire rack to cool. THanks for the dessert recipes too. Ann, I love your caramel sauce! Didn't we call that cake gravy a few years back? : ) Alex that chocolate cake is on the list! You know I love anything chocolate. Sharon thanks for the apple dessert recipe too. I have a few that need to be used up so I just might take that on this weekend. I ended up make six dozen sugar cookies for the office crew and the insurance company that leases space from us in our building. I'll be trying the Rye Bread recipe too Ann. I have another Corned Beef in the freezer that I want to make just for Reuben Sandwiches. Claire, no raisins for me either. LOL Love the caraway seeds though. THanks again to all y'all!! David

Some Irish recipes don't transpose well; sometimes the disappointment in the final product comes from an inability to find comparable ingredients or a misunderstanding of measures. Notice the differences in amounts in this recipe for brown bread. From the Little Irish Baking Book by Ruth Isabel Ross: Nutty Brown Bread 50 g / 2 oz / 1/2 cup pinhead oatmeal* 175 g / 6 oz / 1 1/2 cups wheatenmeal (whole-wheat) flour 75 g / 3 oz / 3/4 cup white (all-purpose) flour 1/2 t./generous 1/2 t. US t. sugar 1 heaped tsp / 1 1/4 US tsp bread (baking) soda 280 ml / 1/2 pint / 1 1/4 c. buttermilk Put the oatmeal, flours, sugar and bread/baking soda into a bowl and sift with your fingers. Add the buttermilk. Mix everything with a wooden spoon. Knead slightly. Place the dough in a greased tin and bake at 200°C / 400°F / gas 6 for 30-35 minutes. Wrap the loaf in a clean tea towel/dish cloth to keep it from becoming hard. Do not cut it for a few hours but finish within 24 hours. *pinhead oatmeal is also known as Irish or Scottish oatmeal or steel-cut oats Irish "all-purpose white" is a soft wheat low-protein flour. So something like a bread flour or a typically high protein King Arthur flour would not yield pleasing results. White Lily or another soft southern flour like Weisenberger is a bit closer to the original. This article from The Atlantic provides some helpful insights on Irish flour: The Secret of the Irish Scone For the truly authentic, Irish flours can be purchased at the link. Carol

The Irish Freckle Bread I make is a yeasted bread. It happens to be my daughter's favorite. From your brief description three things come to mind. Is your flour old? Old flour doesn't make good bread. Secondly, mixing time. How long did you knead the dough? Sticky/glue-like dough is caused by under-mixing or over-mixing. If you didn't knead it enough, the gluten wasn't properly developed leaving the dough sticky. If the dough was over-mixed the gluten strands break down, letting the dough become sticky. And thirdly, the hydration may have been off a bit - and needed a little more flour. Flour amounts in a yeast bread are just good guesses. You may actually need more or less flour than indicated in the recipe. If the recipe called for all-purpose flour and you used bread flour, you would need to alter the amount of flour because there is more gluten in bread flour; therefore it would need more hydration than all-purpose flour (or just use less flour). Gluten soaks up hydration like a sponge. The recipe is just a guideline, you still need to go by the "feel" of the dough and you want a nice soft ball of dough. If this recipe was a soda bread, then I'd suggest mixing by hand and not in a stand mixer. The perfect tool for mixing quick breads is a Danish Dough Whisk (available from King Arthur Flour). Soda breads are quick breads and you want to keep mixing to a minimum so you don't over-develop the gluten strands. -Grainlady