Irish Soda Bread

(adapted from Gourmet Girl Cook’s Recipe)

Ingredients:

2 cups blanched almond flour

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 cup golden flaxseed meal

3 tablespoons Swerve Sweetener (or erythritol)

2 tablespoons diced chilled butter

1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum

1/2 cup whipping cream

1 large egg

1/2 of 1.5 ounce box of raisins (finely chopped)

1/4 cup dehydrated cranberries (crush into tiny bits)

1 teaspoon coconut flour

Sprinkle of poppy seeds (less than 1/2 teaspoon)

1. Add almond flour, sea salt, baking soda, baking powder, flaxseed meal, Swerve (or erythritol) into medium sized bowl and mix together well until ingredients appear uniform. Add in xanthan gum and mix together well.

2. Add chilled butter to above mixture and cut butter into the mixture with a pastry cutter, two knives that you cross together in a scissors like fashion, or simply use your fingers to mix in butter with the mixture until it appears like a coarse meal and you no longer see large bits of butter.

3. In a small bowl add finely chopped raisins and crushed, dehydrated cranberries. To crush them, place them in a sandwich bag and zip lock closed. Pound several times with a rubber mallet (they will crush easily). Add to raisins in small bowl. Add the coconut flour and mix ingredients together. The powder from the coconut flour and cranberries will prevent the raisins from sticking together.

4. Add raisin and cranberry mixture to the dry ingredients above and mix together well.

5. Add 1 large egg to 1/2 cup of whipping cream and beat lightly until mixed and you no longer see separated bits of egg.

6. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients mixture.

7. Add the egg and whipping cream mixture and blend together with the dry ingredients with a spatula. Form a ball with this mixture.

8. Dampen your hands with water and form into a smooth ball and place on parchment paper or silicon sheet on a baking sheet (or alternately in a greased oven-proof skillet). Sprinkle top with poppy seeds. You may alternately use orange zest.

9.Bake at 350 degrees (325 if using a dark pan) for about 25-30 minutes until brown and toothpick inserted comes out clean. If you need to bake longer and the top is getting too brown, turn oven down to 300-325 and bake for another 3-5 minutes, watching carefully so as not to burn the top.

10.Allow to cool at least 5-10 minutes then place on metal rack to cool completely.

Cut into 16 slices and serve with butter, low carb jam, or toast in a toaster or conventional oven at 350 degrees for 2-4 minutes and serve with butter or coconut oil or coconut manna (my fave)!  No one will believe that this is a low carb bread!

Nutritional information based on 1 of 16 slices.

Calories= 128, Fat= 10.2 grams, Protein= 4.0 grams, Net carbs= 2.9 grams