(loud trumpet music)
- Top of the morning to ya. (laughter)
That's a terrible Irish accent.
Top of the morning to ya and Happy Saint Patty's Day
from Smart Cookie.
Today, we are making Irish Soda Bread.
I'm gonna take this jaunty hat off.
Irish Soda Bread is a traditional Irish dish.
It is a bread that's leavened with baking soda
instead of yeast, and that's what we're gonna make today.
It's super simple, really tasty, it's basically
like a giant scone.
All right, Cookies, let's jump right in.
This is super simple.
I'm calling you Cookies now, I hope that's okay.
First things first, AP Flour.
Actually, special thing about today, I'm making not one,
but two versions of this.
Now, neither of them are really traditional recipes,
we're going a little off the book,
but I think that they're tasty, so that's what we're doing.
Now that we've got our AP Flour in,
next is whole wheat pastry flour.
I'm specifically doing pastry flour because it is lighter
than regular whole wheat, and we want things to be
as light as possible, so our baking soda doesn't have to
work so hard to rise the bread, you know?
Bread rises, but the baking soda raises it?
Very confused.
Can somebody from the grammar police let me know?
Okay, it's just so that the baking soda
doesn't have to work so hard.
- [Woman] There you go, there she is.
- Okay. (laughs)
We're doing some rolled oats for texture.
Over here, too.
Making two batches of bread at once like a champ.
Sugar.
I've got ...
What is this?
Salt.
Now we're getting to our leaveners.
So we have got baking powder and baking soda.
Smart Cookie fact of the day, what's the difference
between baking soda and baking powder?
Easy, baking powder does not need any sort of acid
to activate it, it's already activated.
Baking soda, on the other hand, does need an acid,
which is why we're using buttermilk.
Our basic dry ingredients are now all together,
so I've got two bowls that are exactly the same.
So now we're gonna make two different versions.
We're gonna make a sweet version and a savory version.
I know we make a lot of sweet stuff, so this is for the
savory people out there.
Let's start with some cheese.
I've got some extra sharp Irish cheddar cheese,
so we're gonna go in there with that.
I'm gonna get every single little shred.
Black pepper, this seems like a lot, it is two teaspoons,
but I want you to be able to taste it, and who doesn't
like a little spice in their life, huh?
And dill, I really love dill.
I think it brightens this up, it's got a
nice, bright herbaceous-ness.
This is for our savory version.
I'm just gonna mix those dry ingredients in.
Let's do our sweet version.
So, I've got some cinnamon, craisins, definitely not Irish,
but delicious.
Actually, if you're interested in more history about
Soda Bread, there is actually a national
Soda Bread preservation board,
and you can go on their website and find out all kinds of
amazing, interesting facts about Soda Bread.
But it's super important, culturally.
Gotta get that zest, get the zest in the bowl.
I always use my zester up top, because then I can control
how much is going in the bowl and where it goes,
and it's not flying all over the place.
Just gonna mix my cranberries and my cinnamon in.
This is kind of like when you make a biscuit.
I'm just gonna make a little wale in the center.
Buttermilk, and we know we need buttermilk because this
is gonna activate our baking soda.
If you don't have buttermilk at home, don't worry.
All you need is some whole milk.
So you do one cup of whole milk to one tablespoon
of some sort of vinegar, so like a white wine vinegar
or lemon juice, some sort of acid.
And you just let it sit on the counter for a couple minutes
and it will basically make a buttermilk substitute.
Super easy.
Okay, also, butter.
I'm using some good ol' Kerrygold.
Shout out, what's up, Kerrygold?
Using some Irish, grass-fed butter.
Y'all, it's so good.
We're just gonna gently, gently, mix this in.
I can kind of do an Irish accent, the only way I know how
to get into an Irish accent is to
think about this one phrase.
Maybe 10 years ago, I was at Disney World with the fam,
and I heard this Irish family that were there for vacation.
But the dad was outside of the bathroom waiting on
some of the kids, and I heard him yell,
"Connor, get out of the bathroom."
And that is the only way that I can get into
an Irish accent, I have to yell,
"Connor, get out of the bathroom."
And then I can kind of do an Irish ...
No, I can't do an Irish accent anymore.
That's my story about an Irish accent and I can't do it
now on command because I'm nervous.
Connor, get out of the bathroom.
So this makes a really, super sticky dough.
I'm gonna leave this be for now and we're gonna go ahead
and do this exact same thing over here.
Now that you've got this, we're gonna do some light
kneading of the dough.
Excuse me, gotta try to move these things right over here.
Time to get handsy with it, you know what I mean?
So we're going onto a pretty generously floured board
because the dough is sticky, it's not really gonna be like
a lightly floured situation.
Just gonna flop that out, delightful.
I'm gonna flour my hands, flour the board,
flour all the things.
I'm not gonna really knead this heavily because I don't want
to deactivate or push out all of the gas
that the baking soda is creating, so really all I'm doing
is trying to get this to come together into a smooth loaf.
So I'm just gonna do this kind of gently.
So, all I'm doing is kind of rotating this, taking a piece
and pushing it into the center with the palm of my hand,
and then rotating, pushing into the center with the palm
of my hand, and that's how you knead some dough.
So now, I flipped it over, and all I'm doing is working on
getting this into kind of a uniform little dough ball.
There it is.
Like a baby's butt.
Like I say in every episode where we make anything that's
kind of like bread, does it feel like a baby's butt?
You're doing it right.
Parchment paper, sheet pan, like that.
Round two.
All right, here's our savory one, flop.
You know, okay, here's my feelings about
Saint Patrick's Day.
Clearly, I am of Scotch Irish descent, let's not joke.
I clearly somewhere in the family line ...
But I always felt like there was far too much of an
expectation for people to think that I was gonna love
Saint Patty's Day.
So as a kid, I was really anti-Saint Patty's because
everybody would be like,
"Oh, it's your holiday because you're a redhead,
"so clearly you must love this."
And when I got older, I did go to a parade one time and
I had a bunch of weird dudes who tried to smooch me
on the cheek and stuff because they were like,
"You're Irish," and I was like,
"No no, please don't kiss me. I'm socially awkward."
So, it was never my favorite holiday, if I'm being honest.
But hey, look, to each their own.
I'm not gonna judge you.
If you like Saint Patty's Day, that's cool.
Whatever you wanna do, man.
That's fine.
You do you, boo.
This is gonna basically ...
These are gonna double in size in the oven, so that's why
I'm being kind of careful about what the shape is because
I wanna try and help them maintain their shape
as best I can.
Look at that, there's no more mess.
These are almost ready to go in the oven, but there's
a very important step.
We have to cut an X into the top of
each one of these loaves.
Now, there's an interesting history behind this because
apparently, the X's were cut in this one, because so that
when they rise, they wouldn't break in weird places.
But secondly, it's suppose to help protect
the household from evil.
Who knew?
All right, so we are going to pop these in the oven at 375
for an hour, and then we'll come back.
Guys, I just wanna say I feel really lucky to be doing
this show, but I also feel very lucky for this tie
because it does this.
Our breads have baked for an hour and then we let them cool
for at least a half hour.
You're gonna wanna do that so that the crumb inside
of the bread can set.
If you try to cut into these when they're too hot,
it's just, it's not ...
The crumb isn't gonna be right, it's gonna be even more
dense than what it already is.
So, the way that this would be traditionally served,
is you would break off a quarter of this and then cut
slices out of there.
So, we are going to cut through half of this.
You can kind of see, it's really dense.
This doesn't have the kind of air holes that you would
expect a loaf of bread that's been risen with yeast,
but this has got a very dense kind of texture to it.
But you'll notice it kind of looks like the
inside of a biscuit almost, which is basically
the texture that you're looking for.
It's like a biscuit.
So there's one half of that, that's our cranberry orange.
We're gonna get our cheddar and dill.
Aw yeah, aw yeah, aw yeah, aw yeah.
Dill-ish.
So, I think this is best served with some butter, of course.
We're going with Kerrygold butter because it is an
Irish, grass-fed butter.
It is delicious, it is my favorite butter.
Butter, butter, butter, butter.
So the texture of this, it's gonna be kind of crumbly.
Mm, mm.
So the flavor of this has got a super dense crumb,
but the flavor has a little hint of sourness that you're
gonna get from the soda that's in here.
But it's got this crunch outside texture, a dense inside.
Truly, it's like you've made a big, giant scone.
And it's delicious.
I hope that you will try this recipe.
I think that it would be really good for Saint Patty's Day
to help soak up whatever you decide you're
drinking that day.
I'm gonna have some coffee.
If you wanna make this an Irish coffee, you do you, boo.
You hit that Bailey's as hard as you want.
All right everybody, I hope you have a very festive
Saint Patty's Day, don't do anything I wouldn't do.
(laughs)
And we'll see you around.
Bye.
(laughs)
Oh, I'm just gonna eat some more of this butter.