St. Patrick's Day Baking and Jamming

St. Patrick's is probably one of my favorite holidays of the whole year, and one reason I adore March so much. My adopted family are very much Scots-Irish American, so joining them has involved really coming to appreciate St. Patty's. I've been wanting to make Hot Cross Buns for some years now, but I never seem to get around to it, with all the St. Patty's cooking to be done----for the day itself and just Irish cooking in the month of March. I had strong bread flour and decided to finally give it a try this year, not least because there was a fantastic strawberry sale at a grocery store near me, and I decided to make a version of "Bunny Jam": strawberry jam with vanilla sugar and some orange juice.

Hot Cross Buns in a muffin tin. These do well when separated out this way, so long as you grease thoroughly.

Bunny Jam! My two-year-old and my partner both love this, so I have to keep us in supply.

Hot Cross Buns are a strange animal, in that they look like a muffin----especially when you put them in a muffin tin, but the currants still add to the illusion no matter what----but they are in truth a risen, yeasted dough, with much less sugar than a typical muffin. I soaked my currants in a combination of orange juice and Irish whiskey to plump them up (maceration), which really made the finished buns very nice and flavorful. My partner and I also made some Irish beer bread earlier in the month, enjoyed with Irish butter, and our kiddo liked taking it for lunch to preschool.

Irish beer bread with cheddar cheese----savory and delicious with Irish butter and a slice of porter cheese, something we treasure from TJ's in March.

The first blossom ever on our Santa Rosa plum, appearing just at the beginning of March.