Irish Soda Bread -- It Doesn't Get Easier Than This

Do you want easy?  My Tuesdays with Dorie group decided to make the (appropriately timed) Irish Soda Bread this week--and frankly, for bread, it doesn't get much easier than this recipe.  Seriously--I've been making a different, but also easy--recipe for years.  This is even easier.  Four ingredients.  One bowl.  A bit of stirring and half a minute of kneading/shaping.  Wow.  Busy moms take note--this might just become the new favorite after-school snack.

Tuesdays With Dorie: Rugelach

 I've always been more of a bar cookie sort of girl.  Brownies are by far my favorite--and not just because they are chocolate.  Five ingredients, one bowl, and forty minutes later, I have a treat ready for kids coming in through the door or a room full of hungry adults working out the details of one or another community activity.  So, it was with great trepidation that I looked over the directions for today's recipe that my Tuesdays with Dorie group was baking and blogging about. 

The March 6th recipe that the Tuesdays with Dorie group decided to work on was rugelach.  Rugelach is a traditional Jewish dessert that is usually made rolled up like a croissant, though it can also be made by rolling up the dough jelly roll style and slicing it before baking, which was how this recipe was made.  Filled with an assortment of dried fruits and nuts, the pastries come out soft, moist, and extremely flavorful.  They are certainly a unique and delicious dessert.  I am glad that I had a chance to try making them this week.  The recipe can be found on p. 325 of Baking with Julia or at Jessica's website My Baking Heart.  Jessica's pictures are wonderful, but she left out a few extra bits of the recipe, so I will post them down below.  

Tuesdays with Dorie

I loved the idea in the movie Julie & Julia of taking a cookbook and trying out every single recipe.  As I have said before, cooking for my family had become a chore, so making such a goal sounded a little more intellectually stimulating than what I had been doing previously.

I decided in January of last year to tackle my collection of Disney cookbooks.  I have all of the books that they have put out with recipes from their theme parks.  (I really had no interest in their cookbooks with "cutsie" themed recipes that go with their movies, etc., just the recipes from the fabulous restaurants at their parks.)  I've probably plowed through about 2/3rd of most of the books now, and will post some of my favorites later.  In the mean time, I was trying to come up with a new challenge, and I think that I found one Dorie Greenspan's website.  

I joined a bit too late to start this Tuesday, but I will be participating in the Tuesdays with Dorie baking group.  This time around, they will be tackling Dorie Greenspan's book, Baking with Julia: Savor the Joys of Baking with America's Best Bakers. You can check out the group website here.  This week the group is working on the recipe for Chocolate Truffle Tartlets.  One of the hostesses, Spike, has posted the recipe here.  The next round of posting will be for the March 6th recipe for Rugelach.  I hope you check out my post about it, then.