TWD: Baking with Julia- Irish Soda Bread

Dried cherries and cranberries, toasted walnuts, dash of cinnamon and a sprinkle of turbinado sugar- this isn't your ordinary Irish Soda Bread, ladies and gents. Very simple to make- four basic ingredients: flour, baking soda, salt and buttermilk, and then choose your add-ins, mix, knead and bake a little and ta-da! Beautiful hearty bread in under a hour. For the recipe check out Carla @ Chocolate Moosey.

Fourth Time's the Charm!

Practice practice practice!  Yes that's the key to any success...so I have been told.  Well gosh darn it turned out to be true with the White Loaves recipe.  Check out these babies.

The trick to that beautiful crust was an invaluable suggestion from my wise mother in law- a serious coating of egg wash and now they glow!

Someone else was excited too about the new loaves...

TWD: Baking with Julia- Rugelach Cookies

Rugelach cookies just happen to be some of my all time favorite- top ten- can't live out cookies, so I was more than thrilled to learn this recipe was next for the first week of March.  Feeling a little adventurous, I decided to make three different variations of the cookie along with the original - one with orange marmalade and mini chocolate chips, one with raspberry jam, salted pistachios, and dries cherries and the last one with semisweet chocolate, shredded coconut and toasted almonds.   The original version was made with the apricot lekvar (an apricot almond butter), toasted walnuts, and raisins.  They all turned out wonderful with the buttery cream cheese dough, sprinklings of cinnamon and brown sugar and delectable fillings. If you have any other flavor combination ideas for rugelach, please share! You can find the recipe on Jessica's My Baking Heart.  I love her photo of the three cookies on the plate with the rest of them on the cooling rack in the background- great shot!

The Original Version with Apricot, Walnuts and Raisins

Three Scrumptious Variations