Co. Antrim + Solar-powered Pastry Flour
Hi Friends,
May is already here and for some this brings a happy celebration of Mothers Day and for others it is a time of contemplation and an opportunity to stay home and bake.
Twenty years ago, my husband David and I moved to a small town called Carrickfergus, in Co Antim, Northern Ireland. We could see the ocean through our kitchen window. It had a small parade of shops, a place to buy fish and chips, a local train station to get into Belfast, and wonderful paths taking us along the Irish Sea, where on some days the cold wind would take your breath away. It was stunning, and we were so fortunate to live there. We are from London, and it was during this time that we began to learn about traditional Irish baking and the accompanying vegetable soup, packed full of vegetables and herbs, slowly cooked in broth, often enriched with the addition of barley berries. And this soup would have never been served without slices of warm Irish Soda Bread with Irish Butter. Fast forward a few years and David and I, with our 2 children, found ourselves living in East Belfast. We were right in the heart of the city. Only a small drive away from the rolling green hills of Co. Antrim and just a one-mile walk to St Georges Farmers market. One of our favorite green grocer stands was a local Co Antrim farmer, who would sell huge totes, filled to the brim with freshly chopped soup vegetables from his farm. We’d take home the bundle and get it on the stove to cook for lunch. Most weeks, when we were getting to the bottom of the pot, we could begin to feel the grittiness from a slight dusting of the soil left over on the vegetables. But we didn’t mind, as it was a reminder of how fresh it all was, and it literally added earthiness to the earthiness of the soup!
Now living here in Asheville, NC, I have found myself craving the comfort of this vegetable soup with soda bread on the side, packed full of nutrients, helping us to feel healthy and warmed through. It is the type of soup women across Ireland take to friends and family to show they care.
A few month back, Jennifer and I came across a wonderful baker and writer from Co. Antrim Northern Ireland named Cherie Denham, her first book The Irish Bakery, having come out last year. We both got a copy for the recipes as well as the beautiful photography and writing. And then last weekend, at the Asheville Bread Festival a lovely customer came and chatted with us, sharing about her time in Southern Ireland at the Ballymaloe Cookery School and how she learned about Irish Soda Bread. She came home to the USA and found that our 75 Pastry Flour was the perfect flour for the recipe, which make a lot of sense, as the climate in Ireland, like North Carolina, is better suited for soft wheats (think biscuits, pie, and soda bread) then hard wheat (although we are lucky to have regionally adapted hard (bread) wheat varieties that we grow here in NC). She, too, had been using The Irish Bakery book and loved it. AND this came at a happy moment for us, as the week before, on Earth Day, our amazing miller, Trey made a bit more 75 Pastry Flour than we needed (milled on Earth Day is a wonderful reminder that we are solar-powered flour ). SO, we thought this was a wonderful opportunity and excuse to do some test baking.
This week Jennifer has been busy in the test kitchen making all my favorites: Irish Soda Bread, Spotted Dog, and Buttermilk Scones (some days it’s extra special coming into work when we need to taste test!) all inspired from The Irish Bakery cookbook. And we want to share this with you. We have created recipe cards to send out with our 75 pastry flour orders for the month of May… this could be a great Mother’s Day gift! These are simple, easy, quick recipes that do not require yeast or sourdough starter so if either of those methods feel a little intimidating, then this might be the perfect opportunity for you to give it a try. In our home, this not only makes a wonderful easy bread for sandwiches, but it’s also incredible eaten warm with some good butter and jam or toasted with a couple of eggs on top.
If you can get your order in by Monday we will have them shipped out priority mail on Tuesday in time for Mother’s Day and will include recipe cards inspired by the Irish Bakery. Maybe on Saturday, you can get to your local farmers market and get the ingredients for the soup and enjoy the practice of baking and cooking for comfort.