Irish Soda Bread with Cranberries and Almonds

I adapted this recipe for Irish Soda Bread from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook. Hers had raisins and caraway seeds in it.  I didn't have either in my pantry, but I did have dried cranberries and almonds. According to chef Rory O'Connell on Epicurious.com, the original soda breads were made with either whole-meal flour or white flour. However, the addition of sweeteners and dried fruit is recent.  Soda bread is patted into a round and baked. The round shape is traditional, and it comes from being cooked originally in a cast-iron pot, since many homes did not have ovens in the early 1800s. Irish Soda Bread is actually a quick bread and not a yeast bread.  In the picture above,  the dough is prepped for baking on a parchment lined baking sheet.

The dough should be handled as little as possible. When I combined the wet and dry ingredients, the dough came together in a gooey sticky mass. I patted it into an 8 inch round. I scraped it off the sides of the mixing bowl and gently placed it on the parchment lined baking sheet. I slashed the loaf and studded the top with toasted sliced almonds. I forgot the egg wash.

This is the finished height and color after baking.  It looks kind of hairy! It looks kind of dry too.

The texture was just like my banana tea bread, and it wasn't too sweet. The ends were dry but the slices in the center were not. I guess I could live with that. The slices were long and narrow like a slice of biscotti. In fact, that's what it reminded me of. To make the bread have more height, I'd pat the dough into a smaller, higher round. And for variation in taste, color, and texture, I'm going to use pistachios instead of almonds with the dried cranberries. Andy pronounced this one a keeper.

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