Grandma's Proziaki!

   I know it's way past St. Patrick's Day and everybody already forgot about Irish soda bread, but not me. I was going through some recipes and I saw one for this bread. I heard about it, but I never had one... at least that's what I thought until I read the recipe. I could not believe my eyes... Irish soda bread is nothing other than my grandma's "proziaki"! Seriously, how could I not know about that? Every time (and I mean every single time) we would go to visit my grandma, we would always request them. She would form disks of dough and bake them directly on her old-fashion firewood cooking stove...man it was the best thing in the world!!! And they call it Irish soda bread? No way... it's Grandma's Proziaki, period! So here is the recipe, that couldn't be any simpler ... I did stick to the "bread" shape and I added something extra to make it my own!

Ingredients:

*  4 cups all purpose flour
*  1 3/4 cups buttermilk
*  2 tsp baking soda
*  1 tsp salt
*  3/4 cup roasted pumpkin seeds
*  3/4 cup roasted sunflower seeds
*  1 tsp olive oil

Directions:

1. In a large bowl combine flower, baking soda, salt, and seeds. Mix to combine.
2. Slowly add buttermilk mixing until incorporated into a flour.
3. Place dough onto a floured surface and knead until it forms a ball.
4. Transfer dough onto baking sheet lined with parchment paper, shape it into a round loaf, brush the top with the olive oil, and cut a X on the top.
5. Cover it with aluminum foil and bake at 425F for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for additional 15 minutes until golden brown.

   The outside is crispy while the inside is dense and moist. Oh yeah, put a little bit of butter or cream cheese on a hot slice of bread and it's like you are in my grandma's kitchen! Brings me right back to when I was a little kid. I really like it with the pumpkin and sunflower seeds, I think it's a great addition.

Enjoy,
Magda.