Irish Soda Bread -- Sweet Melissa Sundays

Time for Sweet Melissa Sundays! Our recipe of the week is Irish Soda Bread, picked for us to try by Julie at A Little Bit of Everything -- thanks, Julie! I had been feeling a little unmotivated in the kitchen the past couple of weeks, we've just been so busy with field trips and school events that there was no time for playing around in the kitchen. Yesterday this Irish Soda Bread gave me the little nudge I needed to get back into the kitchen :)

You can find the recipe for this Irish Soda Bread here at Julie's site if you do not have The Sweet Melissa Baking Book.

I've made Irish Soda Bread a few times before and every recipe is a little different, this one calls for golden raisins and currants, I was out of currants, so just subbed in regular raisins along with the golden ones. This recipe has an optional 2 tablespoons (yes, that is a lot!) of caraway seeds. I debated adding them for a minute, but then figured, why not? I had them on my spice rack and don't use them often, so in went the full 2 tbsp. My first thought was uh-oh, too many caraway seeds, but in the end I ended up liking them.

Unfortunately, picky husband and the kids were not fans of the caraway seeds :( I loved them and loved this bread, much more than I thought I would. As a young child growing up, we always bought bread from the local European bakery and tasting this bread took me right back to sitting around the kitchen table with my mom and grandma having caraway bread and butter.

Before baking shot above, and all sliced up below. What a perfect March pick! This is probably my personal favorite Irish Soda Bread, although with the family not liking it, not sure when I'll get to make it again. A couple recipe notes -- I did mix this bread up in my food processor before kneading in the raisins, and also, I had to add an extra 10 minutes on to the baking time.