Irish Soda Bread

Growing up, a few days before Christmas,  I could always count on Mrs D to hand deliver freshly baked Irish Soda Bread.  This was a very fair exchange for a tin of my mother's cookies.  As I got older, I marveled that Mrs D, mother of ten, had time to bake at all.  She never seemed stressed, or out of sorts on her visits.  Her last pregnancy resulted in twins, and my young mind associated a popular beer jingle, "the one to have when you're having more than one", with her multiple births.  In my mind Mrs D, the Schaefer Brewing Company and Irish Soda Bread will be forever linked.  One Christmas, in my stocking, I found a blank red notebook, a place for me to keep my favorite recipes.  The ingredients for the yummy loaf were an immediate entry, one I still turn to every holiday season, a gift I like to make for friends.