I've heard it said that the best food is made with love. If that's true, then this Irish Soda bread should be suburb! See, I don't like Irish Soda bread. There I said it. But my mom? She loves it! When I was working on my book, I wanted to create an Irish Soda bread that she would love. After many attempts, I finally created a loaf that she enjoyed with gusto. This recipe is the result.

Since my mom enjoys raisins and caraways, I've included them in my recipe. In fact, she claims that caraways seeds are her favorite part of this bread. Her loaf, therefore, gets a whopping two tablespoons of the seeds. If you are like me and don't care for caraway, you can either leave it out or just put a few seeds in the batter. Either way, the loaf will taste great. As for the raisins, they can be substituted with any dried fruit. Use whatever you love in this loaf.

The only other note I have about this bread is that it takes a little while to bake--about 1 1/2 hours. The resulting bread has a delicate crumb and, unlike some soda breads, doesn't fall apart when sliced.

Irish Soda Bread from Easy Gluten-Free Baking by Elizabeth Barbone (2009 Lake Isle Press)

Dry Ingredients

3 1/2 cups white rice flour

1/2 cup sweet rice flour

1/4 cup cornstarch

1/4 cup potato starch

5 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum

Wet Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

2 large eggs

1 cup granulated sugar

2 cups buttermilk

1 -3 Tablespoon caraway seeds (You can use more or less caraway seeds to taste.)

1 1/2 cups raisins

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and rice flour a 9-inch springform pan.

2. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together dry ingredients. Set aside.

3. In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter, eggs ,and sugar until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. (Use high speed on a handheld mixer or medium-high speed on a stand mixer.)

4. Stir in half the dry ingredients into the butter/egg mixture. (Use low speed on a handheld and stand mixer.)

5. Stir in the buttermilk until thoroughly combined. (Use low speed on a handheld mixer and stand mixer.)

6. Add remaining dry ingredients, caraway seeds and raisins. Mix batter for 1 minute. (Use medium speed on a handheld mixer or medium-low speed on a stand mixer.)

7. Spread batter evenly into prepared pan.

8. Bake bread approximately 1 1/2 hours, or until a cake tester/toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

9. Allow bread to cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Turn bread out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes one loaf