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A holiday bread recipe by guest author, Heather Forsyth.

This recipe has been in my sister's family for over a hundred years, and came from her father's Irish grandmother.  The way the recipe comes together is a little unusual, but like most quick breads it is leavened by baking soda.  Once baked, it is has a dark crust, and a moist and chunky interior, something like a fruitcake, but without those gross candied things.  It keeps beautifully, and is equally at home on a cheese plate or toasted with butter for breakfast.  If you're lucky enough to be invited to someone else's house for dinner on St. Patrick's Day (so it's not your house that smells like boiled cabbage), it makes a great hostess gift.  It's also a great morning-after cure if you drink a little too much green beer!

Irish Date-Nut Bread

• 1/4 c. shortening
  


• 1 c. whole, pitted dates, coarsely chopped
  


• 3/4 c. coarsely chopped walnuts
  


• 1 1/2 t. baking soda
  


• 1/2 t. salt
  


• 3/4 c. boiling water
  


• 2 eggs
  


• 1/2 t. vanilla
  


• 3/4 c. sugar
  


• 1 1/2 c. flour

Preheat oven to 350.  Generously grease a loaf pan and set aside.  Put shortening, dates, walnuts, baking soda and salt in a bowl.  Pour the boiling water over everything and put a plate over the top of the bowl to keep the heat in.  Set it aside for about 10 minutes.  In the meantime, beat the eggs with the vanilla and sugar, then stir in the flour.  The dough will be very stiff, almost like a sugar cookie dough.  Now go back to your date mixture.  The shortening will be mostly, but not completely disolved.  That's okay.  Stir it around a bit and poke around any remaining big lumps of shortening to blend them in.  Dump the sugar dough on top of the date mixture and begin mixing together.  I find it easiest to use a big fork for this.  You want to blend the two mixtures together well, but just until blended.  Don't beat or overmix.

Scrape the batter into the loaf pan and bake for 50-60 minutes until the loaf starts to pull away from the edges of the pan and a tester comes out clean.  If you feel it is becoming too dark before it will be done, you can cover it loosely with foil.  Let it cool in the pan for about 5 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to finish cooling.  It slices most easily if you let it cool completely and use a very sharp knife.

Note:  I know it's out of style for most of us to cook with shortening anymore, but this is the one recipe that I do.  I suppose you could substitute butter, but I never have as I like to keep this recipe as it was passed down to me.  If someone does try it with butter, let me know how it works out.