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I find it physically painful to purchase a ready-made baked treat I could make myself. When you bake at home you know two critical things. You know what you are putting into your cookies and you know how much what you are putting in costs. To pay $2.50 for a single, albeit large, chocolate chip cookie is highway robbery. Not to mention, half the time the cookie is a stale disappointment. But when a craving calls, and I have been too lazy to bake a batch myself, what’s a girl to do? As with so many things you do with the knowledge you shouldn’t, the end result is a kind of sick, empty feeling with the added attraction of crumbs clinging to your sweater.
Like the other night, I was going to the movies with a friend and we stopped at Starbucks to pick up lattes and cookies—yes, we were sneaking in ‘outside refreshments,’ shhhh. The selection had been reduced to a jagged, misshapen remnant of an M & M cookie and a crumbly looking oatmeal. No thanks. So, with cups in hand we went to the adjacent gourmet deli to reassess our choices. I would have been happy with my usual box of Junior Mints but my friend was drawn to the table in front piled high with cellophane bags of Tate’s cookies.
“What, are you crazy?” I asked. “They’re $6.00!” Plus who knew how long they’d been sitting there. I lost the battle. (And then wound up spending $4.00 on Juniors at the concession stand, instead of $1.00 at the deli, because I was being an indecisive pain in the neck). I started to think about Tate’s. Years ago there were Kathleen’s Cookies made by Kathleen King in Southampton who had one of those local girl makes good stories. She sold her cookies at her family’s farm on the east end of Long Island, gets out of college, starts in a small place selling a few things, winds up buying a bigger place and getting distribution around the area until Kathleen’s cookies are in the fancy market near you. Part of me has always been a little jealous of her story. Not that I would have done particularly well on a farm as a child, or an adult, but what a nice way to make a living. That is, until she lost her name.
I don’t know anything about anything legal but I can’t imagine what kind of business decisions lead to a person losing the use of her own name in connection with a line of products she has created. All I know is that one day Kathleen’s had different packaging and it looked suspiciously corporate. Not long after I noticed bags of Tate’s Cookies in the market, which looked suspiciously un-corporate, and just like Kathleen’s old cookies. Long story longer, Kathleen had to turn into Tate (her father’s nick-name) due to the whole legal mess I don’t understand.
The name issue is something very close to my heart. I have this thing where if someone forgets my name, and/or gets it wrong, I have to hate him or her forever. Maybe that seems like a bit of an overreaction but it comes from having had an unusual name back in the day (before Sex and the City ruined everything) which people often butchered or simply forgot. “Amanda,” “Matilda,” “Melissa,” I was called them all. All but "Miranda." You’d think people would remember an uncommon name more than a common one but they don’t. And who wants to feel unmemorable? So, when I heard about the Kathleen/Tate name debacle, I made it about me and thought if someone took my name, and used it for him/herself, I’d be devastated. Hands off, it’s my name.
Meanwhile, in 1990 I bought a copy of The Kathleen’s Bake Shop Cookbook having been drawn to it by the recipes for the lemon squares and the peanut butter squares which were sold at a gourmet store, along with the eponymous cookies, near my parents’ apartment. Oh my, so good. Not to mention the moist blueberry muffins (no wonder, they have even more butter than a cupcake), cranberry-nut and pumpkin breads. I was just starting to bake regularly on my own and her cookbook was a go-to for so many brunches and holidays. I still turn to it whenever I want something homey and straightforward and she never disappoints.
And now, time for my confession. My righteous indignation over my friend’s cookie purchase was completely without merit. What I didn’t cop to was that only the week before I spotted a new (to me) variety of Tate’s cookie, broke down, and coughed up $6.99 at the even more over-priced deli on my corner. Chalk it up to a combination of weakness and research but I couldn’t help myself. This Tate’s Whole Wheat Dark Chocolate Chip option was very good and I finished the bag in two days. The point is, they tasted exactly like Kathleen’s and so really, what’s in a name? Just please don’t call me “Melinda.” You will truly be dead to me.
I’ve been making Kathleen’s Irish Soda Bread forever and her recipe is great. I use currants instead of the hated raisin and I went a little healthier this year trying a 75/25 combo of all purpose and whole wheat flours. If you don't have whole wheat pastry flour just go with all all-purpose. The dough is very sticky but don’t worry, you can always flour your hands to make it easier. The yield is two loaves which I like because then you can give one as a gift or freeze to have on hand. If you don't feel like being generous, or you have no room in your freezer, divide the ingredients by half and make one loaf. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
You Don’t Have to be Irish to Love Kathleen’s Soda Bread
Adapted, Kathleen's Bake Shop Cookbook, by Kathleen King, St. Martin's Press 1990
Printer Friendly Version
Ingredients
3 cups all purpose flour
1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter (NOTE: I used Irish butter that was salted to be even more authentic. If you do the same decrease the salt above to 1 teaspoon.)
1 cup dried currants
3 Tablespoons caraway seeds
2 cups buttermilk
Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper, set aside.
In a large bowl stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
Using a pastry blender, two knives or a fork, cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse meal.
Add currants and caraway seeds and toss lightly.
Add buttermilk and toss mixture with a fork until all dry ingredients are moistened. Don't be worried, the dough will be really soft.
Form dough into a ball and lightly knead on a floured board for about 30 seconds or until dough is smooth.
Divide dough into two equal portions and shape into balls.
Place them on cookie sheet and, with a sharp knife, cut an X on top of each loaf about 1/4-inch deep.
Bake for 50 minutes, or until crusty and golden.
Yield: 2 loaves
One nice thing, really the only nice thing, about Facebook is the ability it gives you to reconnect with long lost old friends. Actually, this can be a bad thing if the reason they are long lost is because you wanted to lose them in the first place and now they are back in your life having ‘friended’ you and you’re not going to be mean and ‘ignore’ them. So you ‘confirm’ their request and then you have to put up with all of their ‘updates.’ And since you didn’t miss them when you had lost them you aren’t going to care about anything they share with their Facebook world. It amazes me how kvetchy some people are. Why are you telling us, ad nauseum, that you are mad, sad, sniffly, stuck in traffic, plane delayed or cranky? I have my own problems. Buck up and say something witty or interesting or don’t say anything at all.
Back to the people you are thankful to have in your life again. I was so happy to hear from Liz, a college classmate, when she popped up in my Facebook in-box. We lived together the semester I spent in London our junior year and I can’t think about her without thinking about that city.
Those few months were my first experience living on my own without the structure of a dorm or dining hall and fending for myself resulted in a pile-up of mishaps. Our building had no washer/dryer so once a week the two of us dragged our laundry (usually in the rain, don’t forget we were in London) to the “launderette” ½ mile away, sat watching the clothes spin round and around while we did our homework, and then schlepped back home (still in the rain) while my “smalls” fell out of my bursting laundry bag onto the wet sidewalk—like Hansel and Gretel leaving a trail of Bloomies “knickers” along Notting Hill Gate.
Once, while sitting in our living room watching an old Cagney and Lacey on our rented telly, I felt chilly and decided to adjust our radiator. Instead of a knob it had a strange little key that fit into a hole at the top of the pipes. Just as I started to turn it a geyser of water blasted out of the little hole, shooting the key somewhere into the middle of the room, and wouldn’t stop. I screamed for Lizzie, who I think wanted to kill me for fussing with the heat in the first place, and while one of us grabbed towels to sop up the rising flood the other was wading through water in search of the key. I still can’t believe the flat one floor below us stayed dry. It was one of those things where you don’t know whether to laugh or cry so we laughed until we cried. Back to the launderette we went, this time with ten pounds of towels.
The most challenging thing proved to be meal preparation. With minimal funds we had to “cook” at home which I’d never done for myself on a regular basis. I couldn’t figure out what in the world “gas mark” meant on our “cooker” or how to convert farenheit to celcius so that left the burners to boil water and the broiler (mounted on the wall like a restaurant’s salamander) to make toast. Of course lighting either component was a hazard what with making sure just the right amount of gas was seeping out and waving the lit match somewhere in that vicinity just so. After the smell of my singed hair threatened to overcome my appetite, ignition became the job of my more adept roommate. Because of my limited kitchen experience the menu at our place consisted of two nightly choices; either pasta a pesto (if that’s what you call spaghetti topped with a tablespoon of butter, a few shakes of dried basil and a few more shakes of canned parmesan cheese) or an open faced grilled cheese and tomato on pita bread. As tragic as those two carb heavy meals sound the grilled cheese came to be a house special; the cheddar cheese from the Tesco around the corner was sharper and richer than anything you could find at Zabar’s today and the Coleman’s mustard we slathered all over the bread made Grey Poupon taste like Gulden’s—a hot bite that added a tongue tingling surprise. Still so good.
Let’s keep my destitution in perspective (hello, I was on an all-expenses paid semester abroad) and remember I never did without sweet treats. To torture myself I might wander the Harrod’s Food Halls on my way home from class, once in awhile springing for their sub-par version of a chocolate chip cookie. Or I’d walk to a French pastry shop in Bayswater for a glossy petit-four. But mostly I bought “sweets”. Crunchie bars were a favorite, milk chocolate enrobing a, you guessed it, crunchy honeycomb center or Smarties (a better version of M & M’s) or my absolute favorite, Mintolas. Imagine a square pack of Rolos. Now imagine dark chocolate instead of milk and mint goo instead of caramel and you have yourself Mintolas. I still crave these bite sized tidbits with their perfect proportion of mint to chocolate. So much better than their distant American cousin, the Junior Mint. Recently, when a friend traveled to London, I practically drew him a Mintola schematic diagram in my attempt to describe his assigned candy purchase. Guess what? They have been renamed twice since 1985—first to Mint Munchies and now to After Eight Bitesize. I know this is only interesting to me but it does solve the mystery as to why no one else but the intrepid (or maybe it was terrified? He knew I’d kill him if he came back empty-handed) Rich managed to track them down on a recent trip across the pond.
In this month’s issue of Bon Appetit Molly Wizenberg wrote an article about British Flapjacks, an oatmeal bar cookie she had discovered on a trip to the U.K. many years ago. She referred to them as a “common sweet.” To quote my mother when she learns of a piece of gossip others have been buzzing about for quite some time, “Why was I not told?” I have never heard of these “flapjacks.” That word means "pancake" in American. So, of course I had to make them and the exciting (for me) thing was that they involve Golden Syrup, a squeezy bottle of which is still in my cabinet left over from my attempt to make a corn syrup-free pecan chocolate pie. There are only four ingredients in this recipe and because I know how to read my oven (which was actually made in Poland. Go figure) it couldn’t be easier.
Imagine the texture of a chewy granola bar with slightly burnt, brittle edges combined with the buttery, caramel-y taste of a lace cookie. Very nice with a ”spot” of tea. I’m just sorry I never met these treats on their home turf but when Liz comes to town next month she will be served flapjacks for dessert—after an open faced pita grilled cheese of course. And hey, Facebook? Thanks for reuniting me with my old friend! Now, please stop complaining.
New Old Friend British Flapjacks
Bon Appetit, March 2010
Ingredients
1/2 cup butter, cut into 8 pieces
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup golden syrup
2 1/3 cups quick cooking oats (not instant or old-fashioned)
Pinch of salt
Directions
Preheat oven to 350
Butter 8x8 square metal baking pan
In heavy, medium sized saucepan combine first 3 ingredients.
Over medium-high heat stir constantly until butter melts, sugar dissolves and mixture is smooth.
Remove from heat.
Add oats and salt, stir until coated.
Transfer mixture to prepared pan, spread out evenly.
Bake until top is golden and edges are darker, about 25 minutes.
Cool in pan on rack for 5 minutes.
Cut first into 4 squares, then cut each square into 4 triangles.
Cool completely in pan.
YIELD: 16 wedges
The other day a friend asked me if I planned on watching the Oscars. If my mouth had been full I would have done a spit-take. “Am I going to watch the Oscars? What? Are you a moron? Have we just met?” I thought, but instead responded with “Of course!” You see the question is insane if you know me at all. I have been watching the Oscars devotedly ever since Rocky K.O'd Taxi Driver, Network, All the President's Men and Bound for Glory to win Best Picture. (Wow, that is amazing when you think about it.) I go to the movies weekly and am a fully committed awards show junkie—from the lowest of the brow (People’s Choice? Daytime Emmys?) to the highest, (BAFTA? Tonys?) I don’t miss an opportunity to cheer or jeer.
For years I insisted on watching alone because I hate it when people talk. Or worse, when people who haven’t seen any of the movies talk. Then I moved on to watching with Rich, my movie going partner, ordering in whatever to eat and usually making some chocolate chip cookies. Meanwhile, my friend Janet was hosting her version of the Vanity Fair party—very exclusive and a much sought-after invite. So, when I finally went from medium-friend to good-friend and scored an invitation I abandoned several key principles in order to hang with the cool kids. First, I traveled to a neighborhood that requires a mode of transportation other than my feet, adding ½ hour to get-home-and-get-in-my-bed time. Also, I watched while wearing a costume. I was never big on playing dress-up and I hate the pressure of costume parties but I loosened up and joined the group for a few years by dressing as one of the characters in a film nominated that particular Oscar year. And then, the biggest compromise of all, I viewed the awards among a large group of fun, smart but very chatty people.
For a few years I managed to play nicely. I actually got into the costume thing (paying homage to Million Dollar Baby and The Girl with the Pearl Earring) and Janet is an amazing hostess so the food and drink were always great. But I hit the wall with the chatty factor and found myself acting like a wet-blanket librarian—shushing my friends, rolling my eyes when people asked basic questions about movies they should have seen, and just being an unpleasant guest.
So, for the last few years I've politely declined the chance to be a party-pooper and it’s been back to watching with Rich, usually chez moi. This year, however, he acquired a large, flat screen TV and watching anything on it in HD is a completely different (and better) experience than staring at what now seems like the antiquated resolution of my circa 2001 27” Sony Trinitron. So, to Rich’s it was. (I’m not stupid though. I DVR’d the E! arrivals, Barbara Walters and the awards in case I missed anything.)
How excited was I when they announced Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were hosting?! Both so funny and charming, how could they go wrong? And the commitment by the new producers to keep it running fast and sleek. Great news. And now all I can say is, "Oh dear."
Allow me to rant. What. A. Mess. I’m sorry, was there no one in the control room minding the store? I’m not even going to talk about Neil Patrick Harris’ opening, it was simply too mortifying. They drag out the Brat Pack to pay tribute to John Hughes. Good idea. But, instead of showing us at home which Pack-ers are actually standing on the stage they first do an aerial shot of the Kodak Theater for 30 seconds just in case we're curious to see what the theater looks like and wonder how many people are in the audience. “Oh, wait. We’d better show the actors now!” You can imagine them scrambling. Frankly, I almost wish they hadn’t. Oh my goodness what happened to everyone? Judd Nelson looks like the leader of a cult, I thought Ally Sheedy was going to do that creepy thing with her hair and the dandruff she did in The Breakfast Club, and was that Molly Ringwald or a blow-up doll? I wouldn’t want to run into Anthony Michael Hall in a dark alley. How about the irony that Jon Cryer, whose charm as “Duckie” in Pretty in Pink was lost on me in 1986, is the one laughing all the way to the bank as he stars with Mr. Stability (and brother of Breakfast Club-er Emilio Estevez) Charlie Sheen in America’s #1 sitcom?
But wait, there’s more. What about the "In Memoriam"? Not to be insensitive but why are we acting like Patrick Swayze was Laurence Olivier? I’m sorry he died “too soon” but will “film” ever recover? (Not to mention, he was doing a cable TV show when he died.) Did we really need that “Unchained Melody” Ghost song and Demi looking like she’d just come from his funeral? But that was the least of it. We have James Taylor droning, I’m sorry, I mean singing, a Beatles song best left to the Beatles while they shot the montage from so far away that the first two people they were memorializing were unrecognizable and then they forgot about Bea Arthur and Farrah Fawcett all together. I don’t even know what to say.
Except I do. How about poor Tyler Perry presenting the award for Best Editing? He does a cute little shtick about close-ups and then no one thinks to actually shoot him, I don’t know, CLOSE UP even after he says, “close-up guys.”
I need to move on to happier things because I am getting re-frustrated. For the first time in years I didn’t sit seething that someone I loved was over-looked. Really, everyone deserved his/her Oscar and how great did Sandra Bullock look and how touching was her speech about her mother and her husband? I teared up.
Oh, but back to negative for one sec. I have had it with Jeff Bridges and his “hey man” business. Enough with “man” and why is he channeling Colonel Sanders? Dude (to use the name of his iconic role) you’re more Beverly Hills than Beverly Hillbilly, what’s with the accent?
But of course the night belonged to Kathryn Bigelow. The Hurt Locker was great and I would have screamed if James Cameron/Avatar had won Best Director/Best Picture and not because he’s a man or an arrogant “king of the world” or her ex-husband. Her movie was just better. It stays with you for days and takes you inside a much more meaningful place than “Pandora.” And if I look half as good as she does at 58 I will be more than a little grateful.
But the night would not have been complete without a spread to rival Janet’s. Okay, maybe not that fabulous but pretty close. Rich put out two kinds of salsa, guacamole, olives and hummus and I made pizza, crust and all, for the first time. Really good! Oscar worthy I’d say. Not hard at all and if you’re scared to make your own crust, most supermarkets sell frozen pizza dough. Next time I think I’ll do a 50/50 white and whole wheat flour mix just to make it a little healthier but even as is, yum. And I’ll be back at the movies this weekend…only a year to get ready for the 83rd Academy Awards!
And the Winner is Oscar Night Roasted Acorn Squash and Gorgonzola Pizza
Pizza Dough
From Everyday Food, March 2010
Printer Friendly Version
Ingredients
2 Packets (1/4 oz each) active dry yeast
2 Tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup olive oil, plus more for bowl and brushing
2 teaspoons coarse salt
4 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled, plus more for work surface
Directions
Pour 1 1/2 cups of warm (110 degree) water into a large bowl, sprinkle with yeast and let stand until slightly foamy about 5 minutes.
Whisk sugar, oil and salt into yeast mixture.
Add flour and stir until sticky dough forms.
Transfer dough to an oiled bowl and brush top with oil.
Cover bowl with plastic wrap and set aside in a warm, draft-free place until dough has doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.
Turn out onto a lightly floured work surface and gently knead 1-2 times before using.
Yield: 2 pounds of pizza dough. Use 1/2 for below recipe.
Pizza Topping and Baking
From Giada De Laurentiis, The Food Network
Printer Friendly Version
Ingredients
1 (1- pound) acorn squash
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon salt, plus 1/4 teaspoon
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus 1/4 teaspoon
1 pound pizza dough (store bought or see above recipe and use 1/2)
1 cup shredded whole milk mozzarella
1/2 cup crumbled Gorgonzola
1 cup arugula
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Slice the squash in half from top to bottom. Scoop out the seeds. Slice the squash into 1/2 to 3/4-inch wide half moons and place in a medium bowl. Toss the squash with the syrup, olive oil, red pepper flakes, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.
Place the squash on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake the squash until tender and golden, about 20 to 25 minutes.
Keep the temperature on the oven at 375 degrees F. Roll out (my dough was sticky so I floured my fingers and pressed it out) the pizza dough on a flour dusted piece of parchment paper to a 13-inch diameter (or whatever rough estimate of a shape you can get it to be). Place the pizza and the parchment paper on a baking sheet.
Sprinkle the mozzarella cheese and the Gorgonzola on the pizza dough.
Bake in the oven until golden and cooked through, about 25 to 30 minutes.
Peel the skins off the squash. Top the cooked pizza with the cooked squash.
Top with arugula and the remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt and pepper. Slice and serve.
I find it physically painful to purchase a ready-made baked treat I could make myself. When you bake at home you know two critical things. You know what you are putting into your cookies and you know how much what you are putting in costs. To pay $2.50 for a single, albeit large, chocolate chip cookie is highway robbery. Not to mention, half the time the cookie is a stale disappointment. But when a craving calls, and I have been too lazy to bake a batch myself, what’s a girl to do? As with so many things you do with the knowledge you shouldn’t, the end result is a kind of sick, empty feeling with the added attraction of crumbs clinging to your sweater.
Like the other night, I was going to the movies with a friend and we stopped at Starbucks to pick up lattes and cookies—yes, we were sneaking in ‘outside refreshments,’ shhhh. The selection had been reduced to a jagged, misshapen remnant of an M & M cookie and a crumbly looking oatmeal. No thanks. So, with cups in hand we went to the adjacent gourmet deli to reassess our choices. I would have been happy with my usual box of Junior Mints but my friend was drawn to the table in front piled high with cellophane bags of Tate’s cookies.
“What, are you crazy?” I asked. “They’re $6.00!” Plus who knew how long they’d been sitting there. I lost the battle. (And then wound up spending $4.00 on Juniors at the concession stand, instead of $1.00 at the deli, because I was being an indecisive pain in the neck). I started to think about Tate’s. Years ago there were Kathleen’s Cookies made by Kathleen King in Southampton who had one of those local girl makes good stories. She sold her cookies at her family’s farm on the east end of Long Island, gets out of college, starts in a small place selling a few things, winds up buying a bigger place and getting distribution around the area until Kathleen’s cookies are in the fancy market near you. Part of me has always been a little jealous of her story. Not that I would have done particularly well on a farm as a child, or an adult, but what a nice way to make a living. That is, until she lost her name.
I don’t know anything about anything legal but I can’t imagine what kind of business decisions lead to a person losing the use of her own name in connection with a line of products she has created. All I know is that one day Kathleen’s had different packaging and it looked suspiciously corporate. Not long after I noticed bags of Tate’s Cookies in the market, which looked suspiciously un-corporate, and just like Kathleen’s old cookies. Long story longer, Kathleen had to turn into Tate (her father’s nick-name) due to the whole legal mess I don’t understand.
The name issue is something very close to my heart. I have this thing where if someone forgets my name, and/or gets it wrong, I have to hate him or her forever. Maybe that seems like a bit of an overreaction but it comes from having had an unusual name back in the day (before Sex and the City ruined everything) which people often butchered or simply forgot. “Amanda,” “Matilda,” “Melissa,” I was called them all. All but "Miranda." You’d think people would remember an uncommon name more than a common one but they don’t. And who wants to feel unmemorable? So, when I heard about the Kathleen/Tate name debacle, I made it about me and thought if someone took my name, and used it for him/herself, I’d be devastated. Hands off, it’s my name.
Meanwhile, in 1990 I bought a copy of The Kathleen’s Bake Shop Cookbook having been drawn to it by the recipes for the lemon squares and the peanut butter squares which were sold at a gourmet store, along with the eponymous cookies, near my parents’ apartment. Oh my, so good. Not to mention the moist blueberry muffins (no wonder, they have even more butter than a cupcake), cranberry-nut and pumpkin breads. I was just starting to bake regularly on my own and her cookbook was a go-to for so many brunches and holidays. I still turn to it whenever I want something homey and straightforward and she never disappoints.
And now, time for my confession. My righteous indignation over my friend’s cookie purchase was completely without merit. What I didn’t cop to was that only the week before I spotted a new (to me) variety of Tate’s cookie, broke down, and coughed up $6.99 at the even more over-priced deli on my corner. Chalk it up to a combination of weakness and research but I couldn’t help myself. This Tate’s Whole Wheat Dark Chocolate Chip option was very good and I finished the bag in two days. The point is, they tasted exactly like Kathleen’s and so really, what’s in a name? Just please don’t call me “Melinda.” You will truly be dead to me.
I’ve been making Kathleen’s Irish Soda Bread forever and her recipe is great. I use currants instead of the hated raisin and I went a little healthier this year trying a 75/25 combo of all purpose and whole wheat flours. If you don't have whole wheat pastry flour just go with all all-purpose. The dough is very sticky but don’t worry, you can always flour your hands to make it easier. The yield is two loaves which I like because then you can give one as a gift or freeze to have on hand. If you don't feel like being generous, or you have no room in your freezer, divide the ingredients by half and make one loaf. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
You Don’t Have to be Irish to Love Kathleen’s Soda Bread
Using a pastry blender, two knives or a fork, cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse meal.
Add currants and caraway seeds and toss lightly.
Add buttermilk and toss mixture with a fork until all dry ingredients are moistened. Don't be worried, the dough will be really soft.
Form dough into a ball and lightly knead on a floured board for about 30 seconds or until dough is smooth.
Divide dough into two equal portions and shape into balls.
Bake for 50 minutes, or until crusty and golden.
Yield: 2 loaves
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