A Few Fun Recipes for Your St. Patrick’s Day Celebration:

St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner, which means it’s time to pull out the recipes for traditional dishes like Corned Beef & Cabbage and Irish Soda Bread. It seems every year we have the conversation about why we only eat these foods once a year especially when they couldn’t be easier to prepare. Sure, you can mix it up by roasting your corned beef or sautéing your cabbage but the standard crock pot recipe that my Mom used is comfort food at its best so I rarely deviate from the one pot Saint Patty’s Day Feast.

Over the last twelve years at Taste & Technique we have come across a few interesting Irish recipes, and there are two recipes that stand out. One is for the kid’s and the other is definitely a grown-up favorite!

Irish Soda Bread Muffins

These Irish Soda Bread Muffins are an old King Arthur Flour recipe. They are sweeter than the standard Irish Soda Bread and what I love about them most isthey can be frozen individually and enjoyed over the course of a few weeks.  Whenever I make Traditional Irish Soda Bread we eat half on St. Patty’s Day and the remaining half ends up dried out and tossed a few days later. With these muffins you can enjoy them fresh out of the oven and then wrap the leftovers to be pulled out for breakfast or even alongside another family meal. Just be sure to wrap individually in plastic wrap and then aluminum foil before freezing.

Kid’s usually love these partly because they have a bit more sugar, but probably because their small size make them seem more like a treat then a bread. A festive way to doll them up is to use green sparkle sugar on the topping. While they might not be authentic they really taste great!

• 2¼ cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• ¼ tsp. baking soda
• ½ tsp. salt
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1½ cups currants (first choice) or raisins
• ½ to 2 tsp. caraway seeds, to taste
• 1 large egg
• 1 cup buttermilk, yogurt, or sour cream
• 6 Tb. butter, melted; or 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• sparkling white sugar, for topping

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Lightly grease a standard muffin pan; or line with papers, and grease the papers.

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar, currants or raisins, and caraway seeds.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg, buttermilk (or equivalent) and melted butter (or equivalent).

Quickly and gently combine the dry and wet ingredients; honestly, this won’t take more than a few stirs with a bowl scraper or large spoon. As soon as everything is evenly moistened, quit; further stirring will cause the muffins to be tough.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan, filling the cups about 3/4 full; the stiff batter will look mounded in the cups. Top with sparkling white or green sugar, if desired.

Bake the muffins for 20 minutes, until a cake tester inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Remove them from the oven. Tip the muffins in the pan, so their bottoms don’t get soggy. Wait 5 minutes, then transfer the muffins to a rack to cool. Serve them plain, or with butter and/or jam.

Irish Cream Bundt Cake

Chef Heather Harm has taught a few “Elegantly Irish” classes at the studio and a few years ago featured a great recipe for an Irish Cream Bundt Cake.  Adults will love this perfect ending to a St. Patty’s Day Feast which is easy very easy to prepare. I’ve even turned this into cupcakes as a great bring-along finger food for a party we attend annually.  It’s a real crowd pleaser!

• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 1 package yellow cake mix
• 1 package instant vanilla pudding mix
• 4 eggs
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup Irish cream liqueur
• Optional Glaze: 1/2 cup butter, 1/4 cup water,1 cup white sugar, 1/4 cup Irish cream liqueur

Preheat oven to 325˚ F. Grease and flour a 10-inch Bundt pan. Sprinkle chopped nuts evenly over bottom of pan.

In a large bowl, combine cake mix and pudding mix. Mix in eggs, 1/4 cup water, 1/2 cup oil and 3/4 cup Irish cream liqueur. Beat for 5 minutes at high speed. Pour batter over nuts in pan.

Bake in the preheated oven for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then invert onto the serving dish.

Prick top and sides of cake. Spoon glaze over top and brush onto sides of cake. Allow to absorb glaze, repeat until all glaze is used up.

To make the glaze:

In a saucepan, combine butter, 1/4 cup water and 1 cup sugar. Bring to a boil and continue boiling for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in 1/4 cup Irish cream.