Cake Pops and Soda Bread

We had a very nice St. Patrick's Day this last weekend, I fixed our nice big meal of Corned Beef, Cabbage, potatoes, and Soda Bread, it was delicious. Every year I splurge and buy Kerry Gold Irish butter for our meal, to go on the potatoes and the soda bread, it is very good butter, and is always a welcomed treat.

The last few years I have made Soda Bread using a recipe I found online.  This recipe is a little different than the classic Irish Soda bread, but I love it, it is very easy to make, and comes out great every time.  Here is a link to this recipe at allrecipes.com for Irresistible Irish Soda Bread.  The only thing I add, is a nice cup full of currents, I love currents in my soda bread.  This recipe also calls for buttermilk, and I forgot to pick some up, so I used a tip that I had heard on Martha Stewart's show last week, if you don't have buttermilk, just use 1 tablespoon of lemon juice in a cup of milk as a replacement for a cup of buttermilk, it did the trick, and the recipe turned out just fine.  I prefer the real buttermilk, as it does add a special something to this bread, but the replacement works just fine.

Here's our soda Bread.

I also experimented with cake pops for a St. Pat's dessert.  I got a bake pop pan set for Valentine's Day, and have been eager to try it out.  The cake cooked up nicely in the pans, but I ran into a bit of trouble with the decorating of the cake pops.  I had candy coating, but I decided to not use it because I was a little unsure of nut allergens in the product I had, so I first tried to use some canned frosting I had in the pantry, which did not work well at all, then I melted a bag of chocolate chips, which worked pretty well, but went on thicker than I liked.  They looked nice with their green sprinkles though.

Here are the cake pops before they were frosted.

Best of all I love the Cake Pop stand that my awesome hubby made up for me, when I realized I had no great way to keep them upright while they set up.  Perfect stand for any treat on a stick, and I'm sure I will get a lot of use out of it. (Thanks Gary!!)

Here is what they looked like first with the experimental canned frosting, then the melted chocolate chip coated and green sprinkles.

My daughter who is very fond of dark chocolate enjoyed the cake pops best.  I think next time I will have to experiment with more of a hardening glaze, that isn't quite as sweet.  My hats off to those who have figured out how to make such amazing cake pop creations, I do not believe I would have the patience.  But it is fun to play around with them, and I am sure I will be whipping up a second trial run of cake pops sometime soon. :)

I am looking forward to the start of spring this week, and hope the weather decides to warm up a bit.  Sunday as we were leaving church it was snowing again, which was very surprising to me since I had no idea it was even cold enough.  In the meantime, I am busy planning my garden, and look forward to getting out and planting some peas this week.

What are you getting planted in your garden this spring?