Faith and begorrah!

Or something. I'm of Scottish and English extraction, mostly - not a whit of Irish, to my knowledge. However, I made my very first Irish soda bread this year, and I'm pretty pleased with it.

Let's get something out of the way right now: I hate caraway with the fury of a thousand suns. There's not much I don't like or won't try, but caraway falls under that first category. Don't even give me seedless rye that has ground caraway in it. I can taste it, and it completely ruins the sandwich for me.

That being said, I will sometimes bypass a piece of Irish soda bread for one of two reasons. One, of course, is the caraway that seems to be omnipresent. The other reason is that Irish soda bread is often dry. It's nothing a little butter won't help, I suppose, but why fix it with butter when one can just fix the bread?

When my friend Sandra posted a link the other day to a recipe for Irish soda bread, I decided to try making it. The recipe intrigued me due to its inclusion of sour cream; I thought that might moisten things up a bit, and by George, I was right. It's lovely. I also added a very small splash of milk to mine, as the flour wasn't incorporating as well as it should.

The bonus, of course, to making my own Irish soda bread: I can make it sans caraway. Huzzah!

Irish Soda Bread
based on Irish Rosie's Irish Soda Bread, from Recipezaar

3 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 pint sour cream
2 eggs
1-2 tablespoons milk, if needed
2 tablespoons caraway seeds (optional) (BLEARGH)
3/4 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 350ºF, and grease 9" springform pan.
Combine dry ingredients - flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt - in a large bowl.
In a small bowl beat eggs until sunny yellow, and stir in sour cream. Combine well.
Add the egg and sour cream mixture to the dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon. If flour is not incorporating completely, add 1-2 tablespoons milk. Batter will be very thick and sticky.
Add the raisins (and caraway seeds, if you are using them). Stir well with wooden spoon or knead in with your hands.
Place batter in prepared springform pan.
Dust the top of the batter with enough flour so that you can pat the batter like a bread dough evenly in the pan without it sticking to your hands. With a knife make a shallow crisscross on the top.
Bake for 50-55 minutes in a preheated 350ºF oven.