"Kiss Me I'm Irish" Muffins {Irish Soda Bread Muffins}

Pin It Now! *yawn* G'Mornin'.  I detest daylight savings time, don't you?  I know, I know, we get an hour of extra sunlight at the end of the day blah blah blah, but for the first few days after the "Spring Forward" has sprung forward, I'm a sleepy mess.  I definitely couldn't get through it without a good (read: exhorbitant) amount of coffee.



I'm sure I'll come around and stop being a negative Nelly about it soon enough, but until then I guess you'll have to put up with my excessive coffee drinking and somewhat incoherent rambling. 



Even Chico is feelin' the lost hour :)

So this Saturday is some sort of Irish holiday if I'm not mistaken.  I had to get my butt up off the couch and accomplish a little something this weekend, so in the spirit of all things Irish I whipped up some Irish Soda Bread.  Kinda.  Loaves take longer to bake, so muffins were the way to go here.  I can stay awake for fifteen minutes.  Maybe.

Typically you would find raisins or currents in a traditional loaf of Soda Bread.  I'm not a huge fan of raisins (*gag*) but I do love me some cranberries, so since I'm the boss in my kitchen there will be no raisins in any baked goods.  Only cranberries.

And pistachios.

Mmmm.

I forgot how yummy and buttery pistachios are until I started snacking on taste testing the ingredients for this recipe.

What are your St. Patty's Day plans?  I'm sure you'll find me sleeping in and generally being a couch potato.

Irish Soda Bread Muffins

2 1/4 c AP flour

1/2 c granulated sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 egg

1 c almond milk

1/4 c butter, melted

1/4 c vegetable oil

3/4 c dried cranberries

3/4 c pistachios, unsalted, roughly chopped

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Line a muffin tin with baking cups.  Or spray it with cooking spray if that's what you're into.

In the bowl of a stand mixer (or you can stir it up by hand as well) mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda.  In a separate bowl, stir together the egg, almond milk, melted butter and vegetable oil.  Add the wet mixture into the dry and mix until thoroughly combined, but do not overbeat.  Finally, mix in the dried cranberries and chopped pistachios.

Fill muffin tins about 3/4 full.  Sprinkle the tops with a bit of sugar.  Bake for approx. 15 minutes, or until tops are slightly golden and a tester comes out clean.

Yields 1 dozen muffins.

Recipe adapted from Taste of Home.