Puppies and Pumpkin

On Saturday I had fun with puppies...six week old golden labradoodles in fact. A friend will be getting one later in the year and the breeder had an open house, so there were puppies but also grown dogs who had once been puppies there. I sat on the ground and was swarmed by about 7  of the cute little doggies. One tried to eat my shoe...and I had specifically not worn shoes with laces to avoid that.

One began chewing on a long green squeaky snake, another tried to climb my leg and other played with each other or rolled on their backs for a rub. Eventually I sat in one of the chairs and cuddled a little guy who promptly fell asleep on my lap. And, no, I'm not going to get a puppy. When we next need a new dog I'll get a rescue. No matter how cute the puppies are, the rescues need a home...it's not optional. Our current sweet dog, Pit, is a rescue and he might just be the best dog we ever had.

A few days before the puppy time I was cleaning out the fridge and discovered a small container that had some pumpkin puree in it. It was the perfect amount for Pumpkin Soda Bread, a recipe in a book I recently purchased, The Harvest Baker by Ken Haedrich. The days are getting longer, so the time for winter spiced treats is waning. This may be the last pumpkin recipe for a while.

The makes a wonderful soda bread. Because of the yogurt it's moister than usual and keeps well. I love the golden color.  As usual I made a few changes, including doubling the amount of butter (although I used margarine), substituting soy creamer soured with apple cider vinegar for the buttermilk, and using a whole egg instead of a yolk. I also added some cinnamon to the flour mixture.

Do try this delicious bread! Do remember to handle it as little as possible once you add the liquid, which is a good idea for any quick bread. There is no yeast in this bread and you don't need a bread pan. It goes together quickly and is perfect with a cup of tea or coffee.

Pumpkin Soda Bread
from The Harvest Baker by Ken Haedrich
makes 2 loaves

Parchment paper or oiled foil for lining the baking sheet
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 tablespoons butter at room temperature, cut into 1/2-inch slices (I used 8 T margarine)
1 cup raisins
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
1 2/3 cups buttermilk (I used soy creamer soured with 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar)
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
1 egg yolk (I used a small whole egg from a local chicken)
Milk for glaze (soy creamer)
Sanding sugar (optional)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or oiled foil.

Combine the flour, cornmeal, 1/2 cup sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon in a large bowl. Mix well with a large whisk. Add the butter and toss it with the dry ingredients. Rub the butter and dry ingredients together thoroughly, until the fat essentially disappears into the mix. Add the raisins and nuts and mix in by hand.

Whisk the buttermilk, pumpkin, and egg in a bowl. Make a well in the dry ingredient mixture and add the liquid mixture. Mix with a wooden spoon just until the ingredients form a cohesive dough. Scrape the dough out onto a floured work surface and divide it in half. Using floured hands, gently shape each half into a ball, kneading in the last dry bits gently if needed.

Place the dough balls on the baking sheet, leaving 5-6 inches between them. Brush each loaf sparingly with milk. If desired sprinkle the tops with sanding sugar. Using a sharp serrated knife, cut a 1/2-inch deep cross into the top of each loaf.

Bake for about 40 minutes, until good and crusty. When done, the bottoms of the loaves will sound hollow when tapped with a fingertip.

Transfer the loaves to a cooling rack and cool well before slicing. Leftover will keep well in the fridge, wrapped in foil and a plastic bag. These breads freeze well, too.

Home Again

I love to go places, but it sure is nice to come home, too. The garden was well cared for by friends, and so the tomatoes are looking much bigger and I even have the first summer squash! The lillies grew really high and the cilantro is enormous in the planter on the deck, so that's where I put the red dragonfly...my Mothers Day gift from Phil's Kate. It looks just right there. Thanks Kate!

The grass also grew like crazy so Sweetie is out on the tractor mowing the 'back forty' after a stint yesterday (with my help) of mowing around the house with the walk-behind brute mower. Merlin is beginning to forgive us for leaving and eating like a champ to make up for his poor appetite when we were gone. He had Sweetie deprivation sickness I guess. They are quite the pair!

One of the fun things I did at my Mom's was to do some planting one morning with her help. We were able to get a rosemary plant and two basil plants into the ground before a nice soaking rain, then potted up some flower plants for the side yard shady area, too. She told me last night that she finished up potting a hanging Mission Bells plant yesterday, so now she has some colorful flowers to enjoy from the family room.

Grandma L brought us dinner last night. I made some Irish Soda Bread with seeds instead of raisins to go with the meal because I know that she loves freshly made bread. It is based on the recipe from my Aunt May who seemed to be able to throw one together in a jiffy when someone came to visit. The recipe below is a variation of the one in the Comfort Food book that I gave Mom for Mothers Day. Try this recipe yourself! It goes very well with soup or salad and is really excellent toasted and served with a cup of tea. You can see how seedy it is.

Seedy Irish Soda Bread

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup graham flour
1/2 cup wheat germ
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup mixed seeds (I used King Arthur 'birdseed' mixture called Harvest Grains Blend)
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup water

Whisk the dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl. Add the seeds; mix well. Mix together the buttermilk and water. Pour over the dry ingredients and mix just until moist - don’t over-handle. Some dry stuff is OK but the dough should be sticky. Pat into a round or oval on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Cut a cross on top. Bake 45 minutes at 3500 F. Cool slightly before slicing.

Note: Harvest Grains Blend could be mixed together using your own ingredients. Here is what is in it:
Whole oat berries, millet, rye flakes and wheat flakes plus flax, poppy, sesame, and sunflower seeds

It's Good to Be Irish

My Mom made Irish soda bread now and then while I was growing up and I enjoyed the soft, warm bread with some butter and jam, but the most memorable soda bread was the loaf made by Aunt May when we visited the family in New York. I was in high school and interested in baking so she showed me her recipe and how she made it. Aunt May, as fully Irish as my Mom, served hers with tea in the afternoon and then I helped her with the 'washing up'. He loaf was very tender and not at all dry. She used currants and buttermilk. Butter and jam were still the accompaniments, but the bread was delicious all by itself.


This month the Bread Baking Babes are making Irish soda bread with herbs with the recipe coming form the very Irish The Ballymaloe Bread Book by Tim Allen. Remembering my Aunt May's soda bread I strayed from the recipe a bit. First of all I only made half the recipe. If all by siblings were here for tea I would make the whole batch, but a half batch is much more sensible for two. I decided to make it for breakfast on the weekend, so I went for slightly sweet instead of with herbs. Not having any currants on hand I added 1/4 cup golden raisins instead.

Good soda bread is soft and tender as a good biscuit, but better for you (especially if you use whole wheat flour for part of the flour as I did. To up the authenticity I used King Arthur Flour's Irish Wholemeal Flour which is even more coarse than most whole wheat flours ) because you don't use any added fat as you do with biscuits. Buttermilk gives some of the properties of fat and the additional blessing of tanginess. Key to success is to handle the ingredients with a very light hand and barely mix them together. I used my spread fingers since this is the method recommended by Tim Allen. It's messy, but you do get a lovely light, tender, moist loaf that way. Butter and jam optional.


Do check out the other Babes' blogs for their take on Soda Bread. Bet most of them followed the recipe and used herbs. I plan to make another half batch myself and do that, too.

Best of all, you can easily be a Buddy this month. This lovely little loaf goes together really, really quickly and bakes up in a little over a half hour, so you can have hot, fresh, delicious bread on the table in no time! To be a Buddy, bake the bread (the recipe is below), post about it, and then send an e-mail with a link for your post to our lovely Ilva so she can send you a badge. Links for the Babes, including Ilva's blog are at the right. Come on, give this Soda Bread a try...you can pretend to be Irish even if it isn't St. Patrick's Day.



White Soda Bread with Herbs
from The Ballymaloe Bread Book by Tim Allen

1 loaf

450 g/1lb plain white four
1 level teaspoon salt
1 level teaspoon bread soda, finely sieved
1 dessert spoon each of rosemary, sage and chives, all freshly chopped
400 ml/ 14 fl oz buttermilk

Heat up the oven to 230 degrees C/450 degrees F

Sieve the flour, salt and bread soda into a large, wide mixing bowl. Add the freshly chopped herbs to the dry ingredients.

Make a well in the centre. Pour most of the milk into the flour. Using one hand with the fingers open and stiff, mix in a full circle drawing in the flour from the sides of the bowl, adding more milk if necessary. The dough should be softish, not too wet and sticky.

The trick with all soda breads is not to over-mix the dough. Mix the dough as quickly and as gently as possible, keeping it really light and airy. When the dough comes together, turn it out onto a well-floured work surface. Wash and dry your hands.

Gently roll the ball of dough around with floury hands for a few seconds, just enough to tidy up. Then pat it gently into a round, about 5 cm/2 in high.

Place the dough on a lightly floured baking sheet. With a sharp knife cut a deep cross in the middle of it, letting the cuts go over the sides of the bread. Then prick the four triangles with your knife: according to Irish folklore this will let the fairies out!

Put this into your preheated oven for 10 minutes, then turn the heat down to 200 degrees C/400 degrees F for a further 25 minutes, or until cooked. When the bread is cooked it will sound hollow when tapped.

Elle's variation: Add 1 tablespoon granulated sugar to the dry ingredients. Add 1/4 cup golden raisins to the dry ingredients and mix well until they are coated with flour. Omit all the herbs. Otherwise, follow the recipe as written.