I don’t know about you, but I have always had difficulty baking any type of bread that requires yeast as a leavening agent. Getting those little packets of yeast purchased at the grocery store to activate, always seems to require a magic touch that I just don’t possess. While yeast has always been the bane of my baking existence, I have never had any trouble wiping up a loaf of soda bread. The main reason for this is the fact that soda bread doesn’t rely on yeast to rise. Instead, soda bread rises through a chemical reaction caused by the mixing of two ingredients, buttermilk, and baking soda. The buttermilk, like other dairy products, contains lactic acid, which when combined with Sodium Bicarbonate “baking soda”, creates a reaction in which tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide from, rising the dough of the soda bread. This fool-proof and reliable method is why I always recommend soda bread to new and inexperienced bakers, you simply can’t mess this one up.
Enough chemistry for one day, let’s talk about the bread itself. Soda bread is a very traditional mainstay of Irish cookery, with each family often having their own takes on the simple base. My family’s preference is to sprinkle a decent amount of caraway seeds on top of the loaf of bread prior to baking. Some other common additions to soda bread that I’ve seen are poppy or sesame seeds to the top, and or adding dried fruits such as raisins, currants, or cranberries into the dough mixture itself. These types of additions are necessary as plain soda bread can often be a little too bland. When you first make this bread I recommend that you add whichever of these optional ingredients that sound appetizing to you, and then experiment, adding other things as you get more comfortable with the recipe.
Irish Soda Bread Recipe
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 50 minutes to an hour
Servings: 8
Ingredients
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 heaping teaspoon baking soda
1 Tsp. salt
3 Tbsps. of sugar
4 Tbsps. of butter
2 cups of buttermilk
Optional: Seeds, such as caraway, poppy, or sesame, Dried fruits, such as raisins, currants, or cranberries
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit
- Sift the dry ingredients: First, you need to sift all of the dry ingredients in order to mix them and get rid of any lumps in the flour. Get a large bowl and place a fine mesh bottom sieve inside of it. Take two cups of the flour and place it in the sieve, then place the sugar, salt, and baking soda, top with the remaining two cups of flour. Once you have all of the dry ingredients in the sieve, slowly shake it so that all of the dry ingredients fall through into the bowl below.
- Add and mix in the butter: Take the four tablespoons of butter and cut them up into small ¼ inch chunks and add them to the dry ingredients in the bowl. Then get your hands dirty by massaging the butter into the dry ingredients until it is thoroughly dispersed.
- Add and mix in the buttermilk: Make a well into the center of the mixture, and pour in almost all of the buttermilk at once, about 1 ¾ cups. Then mix all of the ingredients with your hands quickly and gently until it forms a spongy dough, a bit like thick oatmeal.
* It is at this step that you would add any dried fruits, incorporating them into the mixture*
- Place the dough in a greased pan, and bake: Take a piece of butter and rub it into a 9 inch round, 1 ¾ inch deep pan. Add the bread dough into the pan and make sure that it is evenly distributed.
At this time you can add any seeds that you wish to have to the top of the loaf. One last step to make before putting the dough into the oven is to score a cross on the top, about a ¼ inch deep. The reasons for this are both traditional, the Irish are a deeply Christian people, and functional, as scoring bread ensures that it doesn’t burst at any weak spots. Add the dough to the oven and let it bake undisturbed for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes reduce the temperature of the oven to 400 degrees, and let it bake for 40 to 45 minutes. Keep a watch during the last 15 minutes as some ovens are hotter than others. You will know the bread is fully cooked when it has risen a good inch out of the top of the pan, is golden brown, and feels firm to the touch.
- Cover, cool & serve: Remove the bread from the oven and cover the top of it with a clean cloth. Keeping a cloth over the bread while it cools helps keep the loaf moist. Leave the cloth on top of the bread for about an hour, or until the bread is cool to the touch. Once cooled, turn the bread out of the pan, cut up into 8 pieces, and serve with good quality Irish butter such as Kerrygold.
Irish Soda Bread Recipe
Ingredients
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 heaping teaspoon baking soda
- 1 Tsp. salt
- 3 Tbsps. of sugar
- 4 Tbsps. of butter
- 2 cups of buttermilk
Optional:
- Seeds, such as caraway, poppy, or sesame
- Dried fruits, such as raisins, currants, or cranberries
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit
- Sift the dry ingredients: First, you need to sift all of the dry ingredients in order to mix them and get rid of any lumps in the flour. Get a large bowl and place a fine mesh bottom sieve inside of it. Take two cups of the flour and place it in the sieve, then place the sugar, salt, and baking soda, top with the remaining two cups of flour. Once you have all of the dry ingredients in the sieve, slowly shake it so that all of the dry ingredients fall through into the bowl below.
- Add and mix in the butter: Take the four tablespoons of butter and cut them up into small ¼ inch chunks and add them to the dry ingredients in the bowl. Then get your hands dirty by massaging the butter into the dry ingredients until it is thoroughly dispersed.
- Add and mix in the buttermilk: Make a well into the center of the mixture, and pour in almost all of the buttermilk at once, about 1 ¾ cups. Then mix all of the ingredients with your hands quickly and gently until it forms a spongy dough, a bit like thick oatmeal.
- * It is at this step that you would add any dried fruits, incorporating them into the mixture*
- Place the dough in a greased pan, and bake: Take a piece of butter and rub it into a 9 inch round, 1 ¾ inch deep pan. Add the bread dough into the pan and make sure that it is evenly distributed. At this time you can add any seeds that you wish to have to the top of the loaf. One last step to make before putting the dough into the oven is to score a cross on the top, about a ¼ inch deep. The reasons for this are both traditional, the Irish are a deeply Christian people, and functional, as scoring bread ensures that it doesn’t burst at any weak spots. Add the dough to the oven and let it bake undisturbed for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes reduce the temperature of the oven to 400 degrees, and let it bake for 40 to 45 minutes. Keep a watch during the last 15 minutes as some ovens are hotter than others. You will know the bread is fully cooked when it has risen a good inch out of the top of the pan, is golden brown, and feels firm to the touch.
- Cover, cool, serve: Remove the bread from the oven and cover the top of is with a clean cloth. Keeping a cloth over the bread while it cools helps keep the loaf moist. Leave the cloth on top of the bread for about an hour, or until the bread is cool to the touch. Once cooled, turn the bread out of the pan, cut up into 8 pieces and serve with good quality Irish butter such as Kerrygold.
This soda bread goes great with our recipe for Guinness beef stew
Inspiration from other blogs
From Simply Recipes
From Epicurious
