Mary Walsh's Currant Cake マリイウオルシュのカラントケーキ

We like food themed travel shows. One of which was by Phil Rosenthal. It started as a PBS show “I’ll Have What Phil is Having” which evolved into a Netflix show called “Somebody feed Phil”. Although we had forgotten about it, turns out we had a copy of “Somebody feed Phil The book”. We rediscovered it while looking for another cookbook on the book shelf. It is an interesting read of behind-the-scene stories of the first 4 seasons but it also contains recipes provided by the local chefs they visited during the show. Among those recipes, was one titled “Mary Walsh’s Currant Cake”. Since St. Patrick's day was coming up and the current cake was basically an Irish soda bread my wife decided to make it. According to the book, although it was called current cake one of the secrets of why it tasted so good was that Mary didn’t use currents. She used sultanas (golden raisins) instead. Maybe she used sultanas because she didn’t have any currents. We, of course, didn’t have any currants either (we also didn’t have any sultanas). So my wife used raisons and dried fruit medley from Harry and David. (So really we should probably call our version dried fruit medley cake). As the queen of ingredient substitution in recipes my wife did not stop there. The recipe called for orange and lemon zests but we did not have any oranges. We did, however, have some Meyer lemons which have a flavor that is a cross between a lemon and an orange. So she used that instead and it worked well.

You can see the dried fruit medley and raisins on the cut-surface (picture #1)

Ingredients:
2 ounces (½ stick/55g) unsalted butter (room temperature), plus more for the pan
3¼ cups (450g) all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
2 tablespoons (25g) castor or light or dark brown sugar
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon kosher salt
Zest of 2 Meyer lemons
1 cup dried fruit medley
1 cup of raisins
1 large egg
1¼ cups (300ml) buttermilk
2 tablespoons (30ml) heavy whipping cream
1 tablespoon brown sugar

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 425°F (220°C) and place a baking rack in the lower third of the oven.
Lightly butter an 8-inch round cake pan. In a large bowl, mix the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt together. Use your fingers to rub the butter into the dry ingredients. Use a citrus peeler to zest the Meyer lemons. Add all the zest and the dried fruit to the bowl with the flour mixture and stir until well combined.

Put the egg in a medium bowl and whisk in the buttermilk and cream. Set aside 2 tablespoons of the buttermilk mixture.

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the remaining buttermilk, stirring to make a very moist, shaggy dough. Or, use your hands: grip the edge of the bowl with one hand, stir with a broad circular motion with the other. Turn the dough out onto a well-floured work surface and dust your hands lightly with flour. Gently shape the dough into a thick, roughly 6-inch (15cm) round and use a bench scraper or large spatula to transfer the dough to the center of the cake pan.

Brush the top and sides of the dough with the reserved buttermilk mixture and sprinkle the remaining brown sugar on top (#2). Put the cake pan in the oven, reduce the temperature to 400°F (180°C).

Bake for about 40 minutes until the bread is lightly golden brown on top and sounds hollow when tapped (#3). Transfer the bread to a wire rack and let cool for about 20 minutes. Cut the bread into thick slices and serve it warm with butter.

This is a very nice soda bread. Perfect for Saint Patrick’s day. It had a dense moist texture and a mild slightly sweet taste. The robust flavor of the butter milk as well as the citrus note from the Meyer lemon zest came through nicely. The dried fruit added a nice burst of sweetness.