Lent Week 4: Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

 Hi everyone,

We get two videos this week to learn about Saint Patrick (since St. Patrick's Day is this Wednesday) and Saint Brigid! Along with the story time videos there are two recipes: Simple St. Patrick's Day Soda Bread, and St. Brigid's Butter.  If you make the butter you can use the buttermilk in your soda bread! Or you can just enjoy the stories.  Don't forget to check back on Wednesday for a video to learn a traditional Irish jig. 

Saint Patrick's Soda Bread (adapted from Appletree Press Little Irish Cookbook)

• 2 cups flour (white, whole wheat, or a mix; if you use all whole wheat flour, use 2 cups minus two tablespoons)
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup buttermilk (leftover from Saint Brigid's Butter, recipe below, or you can use regular milk curdled with a bit of lemon juice or a few drops of vinegar.) 
• optional: 1/2 tsp sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Cover a baking sheet with parchment, silpat, or a light dusting of flour so the bread won't stick. 
2. Mix the flour, baking soda, salt, and optional sugar in a bowl with a fork to make sure the baking soda is evenly distributed.  
3. Add the buttermilk then knead lightly to form a soft dough.  To get a soft soda bread, only knead as long as you need to for the dough to come together. Press the dough together into a round loaf as thick as your fist. 
4. Cut a cross in the top and bake for about 30 minutes or until the loaf is golden and sounds hollow when you knock on the bottom. Wrap the loaf in a clean tea towel to keep the crust from hardening too much as it cools.  
5. Soda bread is best eaten fresh, or if there is some left, it's best frozen then toasted rather than stored at room temperature.   I like to enjoy it with Saint Brigid's Butter (recipe below), jam, or honey. 

Saint Brigid's Butter

You will need:

• 1 cup of whipping cream
• a jar with a tight fitting lid (a mason jar or old peanut butter or jelly jar will work!)
• a strainer and bowl
• optional: a pinch of salt
• optional: a marble, or other small clean object that fits inside your jar to use as the "dasher" in your butter churn 

1.  Make sure your jar or other container is clean and, to be extra safe, put some water inside and shake it to be sure it doesn't leak.
2. Pour the cream into the jar leaving at least an inch of space. If you are using a marble or other small object as a dasher, put that inside, it will speed up the butter making a little bit.  
3. Close the jar and make sure it is sealed.  Then shake the jar (I recommend taking turns or your arms will be tired!) until you have whipped cream, then keep going until the sound changes again and you can hear liquid (that's the buttermilk!) sloshing again.  Shake 30 seconds longer to be sure you got all the butter to separate.   
4. Set the strainer over one of the bowl and pour the contents of the jar into it (you can use a spoon or spatula to get any butter that is left behind in the jar.)  You should end up with all the solid butter in the strainer, and the buttermilk in the bowl.  
5. Pour the buttermilk back into the jar and put it in the fridge for later (this can be the liquid for soda bread, or it's good in pancakes or any recipe that calls for buttermilk).  If you used a marble or some other object as a dash, remove it now. 
6. Pour cold water (this is important so the butter doesn't melt!) over the butter to rinse it, then use your hands to press the butter together into a ball.  Do this a couple more times until the water running off the butter is clear.  
7. At this point, if you would like, you can add a bit of salt to taste and knead or stir it into the butter. 
8. Now you know how hard Brigid worked to make a whole butter churn of butter and how kind it was of her to give that butter away! 
9. If you wash the butter well, it can be stored for a week or so in an airtight container in the refrigerator, or you can enjoy it fresh on some Saint Patrick's Day Soda bread! If you don't wash the butter it will spoil much faster, so I recommend eating it the day you make it or the next morning.  
10. * If you want to make butter but don't want to experience how tired Brigid's arms got when she made it the old-fashioned way, you can also make butter in a food processor.