Irish Soda Bread Shamrock Cookies

I realize I'm a day late (literally) and a dollar short with this post since St. Patrick's Day was yesterday, but I still wanted to share this delightful, festive cookie recipe with you. For the past few years I've made the traditional Irish soda bread for St. Patty's. I bought buttermilk last week with the intention of making soda bread again this year, but then I all of a sudden had an inkling to try something different.

I thought, I wonder if there's a recipe out there to make Irish soda bread-ish cookies? Why of course there is! I found a few very similar looking recipes online and finally settled on trying one from a site, Grandma's Kitchen.

The cookies were quite easy to make. It is a little time consuming to roll out the dough, but it's not difficult at all. The flavor of these cookies was fantastic! I was honestly pleasantly surprised by how much I liked the taste of these cookies. I did think they'd be good, but I guess maybe I didn't expect to like them quite as much as I really did. They were certainly sweeter than an actual Irish soda bread, as they called for much more sugar than the bread recipes call for. They were almost a cross between a sugar cookie and a shortbread cookie of sorts. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what they tasted like, but the bottom line? They're delicious! I gave many of these cookies away to several friends over the weekend, and they all gave their stamp of approval as well. :)

Ingredients:

-2 cups all-purpose flour

-3/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp. sugar

-1/2 tsp. baking soda

-1/4 tsp. salt

-1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold

-1/2 cup currants

-1/4 cup buttermilk

-1 egg

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, 3/4 cup of the sugar, baking soda, and salt. Using a box grater, grate the chilled butter into the flour mixture. Stir the mixture with a fork or pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in the currants.

In a small bowl, combine the buttermilk and egg. Add to the flour mixture and stir until a soft dough forms. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead 5 times. Divide the dough in half, and using a rolling pin, roll one half of the dough to 1/4-inch thickness. Using a 2-inch biscuit cutter or a cookie cutter of your choice, cut out the shapes and place on ungreased cookie sheet (I actually put parchment paper on my cookie sheets). Repeat with the remaining dough to form additional cookies.

If you cut the dough into circles, using a knife, score the top of each cookie with a large "X." Sprinkle the cookies with the remaining 2 Tbsp. of sugar. OR, you do not need to score the cookies if you don't want to (especially if you used other, shaped cookie cutters like I did with the shamrocks). I also chose to sprinkle mine with green colored sprinkles instead of the sugar.

Bake the cookies until lightly browned on the bottoms, about 10 minutes. Transfer cookies to cooling racks to cool completely.

This recipe made about 3 dozen shamrock shaped cookies for me.

No, that's not cheese. :) It's the grated butter! The grater worked so well to break up the butter. I think I'll use this method more often when I'm making scones and other similar items.

Currants!

I couldn't make shamrock shaped cookies on St. Patrick's Day without adding green sprinkles to them!

Oops! Which picture here doesn't belong? These were the green beers that Mike and I drank at home the evening of St. Patrick's Day. It was difficult to make them a really "pretty" shade of green, but you can still tell that we attempted!

I hope you all had a wonderful, festive St. Patrick's Day! This very Irish gal sure did. :)

St. Patrick's Day Treats and Eats

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Although I haven't personally made anything St. Patrick's Day themed yet this year, I thought I'd share a few recipes that would be oh-so-delicious for the awesome Irish holiday that's just a few days away now!

Most of these are desserts (can you blame me?), but a few of the following ideas are for non-desserts too. These are all from my favorite blogs (including my own - shameless self-promotion!) as well as from good ol' Pinterest.

From the Barbershop:

Creme de Menthe Bars

Irish Soda Bread and Irish Soda Bread Scones

Chocolate STOUT Cupcakes with Kahlua Frosting

You could easily replace the Kahlua with Bailey's so that they're more Irish!

From elsewhere:

Colcannon

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I had never heard of colcannon until this week (what kind of Irish girl does that make me?! uh oh!), but now I can't wait to make it. It's essentially mashed potatoes with kale. Yes, please!

Steak and Guinness Pie from Closet Cooking

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Can we talk about how deeelicious this steak pie looks?!

Pot o' Gold Snack Mix from Betty Crocker

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Leprechaun Cookie Bark from Your Homebased Mom

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This leprechaun bark is so fun!

Homemade Shamrock Shake from Brown Eyed Baker

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Thin Mint Truffles from Cookin' Cowgirl

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And last but not least, it wouldn't be St. Patty's Day without green beer, now would it?! When we were little, we kids always used to drink green milk with our St. Patty's dinner. But now that I'm an adult (and have been for a while, haha), I get to drink green beer! It's funny because I've never actually made my own beer green before. But you know what? I think I will this year. :)

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Enjoy the holiday, friends! ;)

Stout Gingerbread Cake with Citrus Sauce

I've been meaning to write this post all week but just haven't had the chance to get around to it until now! Aren't things supposed to be less busy after Christmas?? :)

As you may be able to tell from the picture above with the Christmas plate, this Stout Gingerbread Cake with Citrus Sauce is the dessert I made for our family's Christmas dinner (which we enjoyed on Christmas Eve). It was definitely a winner! The recipe comes from Cooking Light, and I found it online at My Recipes. If you click on that link, it'll bring you to the original recipe. And in the reviews, you might just see a review by someone you know. ;) My family and I liked this recipe so much that I thought it deserved a rating from me online!

Although the recipe calls for a stout beer, such as Guinness, I used the beer pictured here, Hibernator by Long Trail, that I picked up right at the awesome Long Trail Brewery in Vermont on my drive home to New York for the holiday. This beer is a Scottish ale, which is a style that's on the darker, maltier side. I figured this would work just fine in place of a stout. Basically, what I needed was a beer that wasn't overly hoppy and/or bitter. A Scottish ale fit the bill perfectly! And coincidentally, if you're a craft beer enthusiast, I'd recommend trying Hibernator if you haven't yet. It's quite a delicious beer and gets great ratings on beeradvocate.com. It's so delicious, in fact, that I had no problem drinking the beer that was remaining (around 10:30 AM on Christmas Eve morning) after I had added one cup of beer to the recipe. My sis took a picture of me to show I had finished the beer. Can't let a good beer go to waste now, can we? :)

Okay, back to the recipe at hand. Do forgive me for getting off tangent there. But when you're marrying a homebrewer and craft beer lover, and are a craft beer lover yourself, it's really hard not to discuss good beer. :)

Ingredients for Gingerbread:

-2 cups all-purpose flour

-2 tsp. ground ginger

-1 and 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

-1 tsp. baking soda

-1/4 tsp. salt

-1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

-1/4 tsp. ground cloves

-3/4 cup sugar

-1/2 cup butter, unsalted and softened

-1 large egg

-1/4 cup molasses

-1 Tbsp. grated fresh ginger (I did not add this; instead, I added another 1/4 tsp. of ground ginger)

-1 cup stout beer (or a dark, malty - non bitter or hoppy - beer)

Ingredients for Citrus Sauce:

-1/2 cup sugar

-1/2 cup water

-1 Tbsp. cornstarch

-1 Tbsp. butter

-1 Tbsp. grated lemon rind

-1/3 cup fresh lemon juice

-1/4 tsp. vanilla

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350. Coat a 9-inch round cake pan with cooking spray and sprinkle with flour. Or, coat it with cooking spray, line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper, and coat paper with cooking spray. Combine flour and next 6 ingredients (through cloves) in a bowl, stirring with a whisk. Combine the sugar and butter in a large bowl, beating with a mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add the egg, and beat until blended. Beat in the molasses and fresh ginger, if using. Add the flour mixture and beer alternately to the sugar mixture, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes before removing from pan and cooling completely on wire rack.

To prepare the citrus sauce, combine the 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup water, and cornstarch in a medium saucepan; bring to a boil. Cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Add 1 tablespoon of butter, stirring until smooth. Stir in rind, juice, and vanilla. Cool to room temperature and serve with gingerbread. 

As you can see, I didn't use a 9-inch round cake pan. Instead, I used my awesome Wilton mini snowflake pan. Isn't it so cute? It gets even cuter once you see the cakes themselves...

Love the four differently shaped snowflakes! The white spots you see on a few of the cakes is just flour from when I sprinkled the pan with flour before filling it with the cake batter.

I sprinkled the cakes with powdered sugar using my mom's sifter... It worked pretty well! I was going for the effect of snow...how'd I do?? I had intended to bring home a little shaker that I have with powdered sugar in it that makes sprinkling powdered sugar very easy but I forgot it. The sifter worked great though instead.

To serve the cakes, I cut them in both halves and thirds, to serve people both bigger and smaller pieces. I poured a generous spoonful of the citrus sauce over the cake, and then topped it off with a dollop of cool whip too. Delicious!

The flavors of the cake itself were wonderful, and the lemon sauce was an excellent compliment to the gingerbread. I highly recommend this combination. It was a perfect Christmas dessert, but I also think it would be awesome at Thanksgiving or throughout the colder weather months. :)

Friday Favorites for the Holidays (4th Edition)

Hello hello, and welcome to my last Friday Favorites before Christmas! And yes, I realize it's Wednesday, not Friday... I wrote this post last night and since it was all ready to go, I thought I'd share it sooner than later in case you want to use any of the ideas I have for you here.

Since Christmas is only a few days away at this point, I was debating what to include in this edition since hopefully you've got most of your homemade treats made and all your gifts purchased and wrapped... What could be left? Hmmm.

Maybe you need a few ideas for simple, tasty appetizers? How about an easy item to include in your Christmas morning breakfast or brunch? I've gathered a few such ideas for you and have shared them below. Oh, and at the very end of this post I have shared a few holiday cocktails that look miiiighty tasty so be sure to read all the way to the bottom. ;)

Appetizer Ideas!

Beer Cheese Dip from TidyMom

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I actually shared this recipe a while back in an older edition of my Friday Favorites. I still haven't made it but I still want to! It only requires four simple ingredients: cream cheese, beer, shredded cheddar cheese, and ranch dressing mix. It's not really on the healthy side but it sure does look delicious!!

Mini Apps on a Stick from Pillsbury

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These are adorable! Pillsbury has tons of great ideas for different flavor combinations to make with these "apps on a stick" - smoked salmon with dill, caprese, turkey club, and dried fig and mascarpone to name a few. And each one contains only four ingredients!

Crescent Wrapped Brie

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This is definitely one of my all-time favorite appetizer recipes. Love this!

Roasted Asparagus Wrapped in Prosciutto

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Another favorite appetizer of mine! Simple and soooo yummy.

Breakfast/Brunch Ideas!

Well, for a little shameless self promotion, I suggest you check out my very own Barbershop Recipe Index and scroll to the breads/muffins/scones section. You may find a few tasty ideas there. ;) Another non-bread idea would be my overnight egg casserole. Judging by the name, you can probably tell that this recipe is able to be made ahead the night before. Anything that means less fuss and time on Christmas morning is always a plus!

I came upon this fabulous looking recipe for banana and candied walnut muffins from Kitchen Confidante on Pinterest this week. YUM!

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Or maybe a baked oatmeal? This recipe from Our Best Bites looks awesome!

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It calls for very simple ingredients that you'll likely already have on hand. Minimizing last minute trips to the grocery store means a lot this time of year!

Now, if you're looking for a more decadent brunch recipe, maybe you could try this baked french toast casserole with maple syrup from Paula Deen. This gets an average of 5 stars after close to 2000 ratings online - crazy! Something tells me this recipe is tasty. ;)

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And lastly...

Holiday Beverage Ideas!

I recently re-discovered that I actually like eggnog, so I was looking up eggnog "adult" beverage recipes. I came across this yummy looking eggnog martini and really want to try it! I actually have the liqueurs on hand that it calls for (vanilla vodka and amaretto) so I am pretty sure I have no excuse not to make this!

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Or how about this spiked apple pie? It's apple juice or apple cider with rum and cinnamon. Sounds deelicious to me! And it's served warm too. Perfect for the winter!

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If you're a fan of the bubbly, this cocktail looks delightful! It's simply cranberries and champagne.

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And finally, it wouldn't be the holiday season in my book without a peppermint-flavored cocktail. This peppermint patty cocktail looks perfect! It's milk, hot chocolate mix, peppermint schnapps, and whipped cream. Helloooo YUM!

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And on a completely different note, my recipe for pretzel M & M cake mix cookies was featured on Boston.com's virtual cookie swap this week! Check out cookie #14 there and you may recognize the recipe. ;)

If you're celebrating Christmas, good luck with your final preparations these last few days! And if you're celebrating Hanukkah, Happy Hanukkah!

Friday Favorites for the Holidays (3rd Edition)

 Happy Friday! Love love love Fridays... Today is especially exciting because I am leaving work early to go home and BAKE! I was "hired" to make a couple desserts for a neighbor's dinner party, and although I did some of the baking/preparation last night, I have a bit more to do after work today. So I'm really looking forward to getting out of the office early and getting into my other "office," the kitchen. :)

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And no, that's not my kitchen. :(  I would love all that natural light though!!

But before I do that, I must share some more fun and simple holiday treats and ideas! The countdown until Christmas is just over a week now...can you believe it?! I can't. If you're like me, you have a lot more to do. Hopefully you don't though! Maybe you're way ahead of the game. If so, good for you! No matter what stage you are in your holiday preparations though, chances are you could use a couple recipes that are super easy and quick. I'm all about efficiency, especially when I'm extra busy like I am during the holidays! Below are a couple easy sweet treats, followed by some gift wrapping ideas. Enjoy!

Rolo Pretzel Bites

These are AWESOME. I've made them before, and my cousin used to make them all the time (she was the one who gave me the idea originally!). Seriously. These are great. Simple, fast, and deeelicious.

(photo from Glorious Treats)

Homemade "Thin Mints"

I made these a couple years ago for the goodie bags I gave to my coworkers, and they were a huge hit. Love these! They're simply ritz crackers dipped in melted chocolate that's flavored with peppermint extract. If you need a last minute holiday treat to bring to a party or give as a gift, I highly recommend these!

(photo from Kraft Foods)

Chocolate Graham Toffee Treats

And I'm also going to put a plug in for a yummy goodie I made for coworkers last year, chocolate graham toffee treats. These involve a few more steps than the two treats mentioned above, but they are still very easy, let me tell you. And the combination of flavors in these? Divine. It's tough to eat only one of these!!

Recycled Gift Wrap

How fun is this? This is old wrapping paper or tissue paper, run through a paper shredder. This would be a great filler to use in a gift bag in place of traditional tissue paper. Or, you could use it to fill space in a gift box, as pictured below. Neat! Great way to reuse material... So save that leftover wrapping paper and put it to good use!

(photo from Martha Stewart)

(photo from Real Simple)

Lastly, if you have outdoor space, I love the decorations below in plant pots. Simple and really pretty! These could easily stay outside throughout the winter too, not only during the Christmas season.

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Have a great weekend - last one 'til Christmas!