Gail's Soda Bread Muffins

I was pleasantly surprised at how these muffins turned out. For Irish Soda Bread, they turned out pretty moist, which can probably be attributed to the sour cream (you could also use buttermilk or yogurt). I used currants instead of raisins, because even though I like both, I think currants are more authentic. Granted, this isn't an especially authentic recipe! I also didn't add any caraway seeds, mainly due to the fact that I didn't have any and forgot to look for them at the grocery store. Oh, and the flour - King Arthur makes a white whole wheat flour (the recipe IS from their website), but it was not to be found at Shaw's. So I substituted for regular whole wheat flour and actually found that to be rather nice; the muffins were still light from the all-purpose flour, but had a more complex taste and texture from the whole wheat. (For the record, I later found KA's white whole wheat flour at Trader Joe's. It comes in a smaller bag... 2 lb, I think?) Also, the muffins sort of stuck to the muffin papers, but it wasn't too bad. Overall, very tasty and a keeper!

A closer look...


Last weekend, I had another fun adventure in baking - I took a brioche class offered by a woman in Belmont. For those not familiar, I learned that brioche is a type of bread that - unlike many yeast breads - uses both eggs and ridiculous amounts of butter. So it goes without saying that this is a very tasty food. During the class, we used the dough to make a loaf, muffin-sized "petit brioche à tête," an AMAZING egg and veggie torte, and quite possibly the best cinnamon rolls I've ever consumed. At the end of the afternoon, everyone was given a piece of dough to use at home. Unfortunately, everything we made in the class was inhaled by Dave as soon as I got home, so I wasn't able to take pictures of those items. But here is the mini-loaf I made from some of the take-home dough the next day.



If anyone is interested in the dough recipe, let me know!