Cinnamon-Swirl Irish Soda Bread

I just pulled a loaf of this bread from the oven and the house smells lovely and warm with cinnamon spice. Because it is so very easy and makes excellent toast, I wanted to share it again today on St. Patrick's Day.  Even if you aren't Irish, your family will kiss you for it!

{from the archives}

  

I feel kind of sorry for that plain, pasty looking round of Irish Soda Bread.   Taking it out of the oven and setting it down beside the cinnamon sugared version made it look like it came to the party and forgot to get dressed.  

Let me just emphasize how utterly delicious this bread was.  It reminded me of the cinnamon scones I used to buy at Starbuck's years ago.  The crumb is dense and if you eat it while still warm, it is as moist as a buttermilk biscuit.  To think that from start to savor it took only about one hour to make this bread is the best part of this recipe.  Oh, and the fact that it has only four ingredients plus one, in this case, the cinnamon sugar. 

Another beautiful aspect of this recipe is that it is a one bowl~no rise~basically no knead dough.  Simply stir it up in a bowl with a fork, dump it out, knead it for one minute and plop into a greased pie plate.  To make mine cinnamon swirled I simply kneaded in several scoops of heavy~on~the~cinnamon sugar mixture before placing the supple dough in the pan.   And as my Irish-Catholic girlfriend instructed me ~ be sure to say a prayer for the Pope before you bake it.

You must stop over and print out this super-simple recipe for yourself.  If you have never made homemade bread before in your life this is the absolute best beginner's recipe!