The best part about the Irish Soda bread, apart from being simply delicious and wonderful to have for breakfast, it takes only 10-15 minutes to put together. The Irish Soda Bread relies on baking soda and the buttermilk as the leavening agent so it is simpler and a lot quicker than using the yeast. The bread comes out of the oven with a nice crunchy crust and a moist, and fluffy but dense inside. It is so easy to finish the whole loaf in one sitting with some good butter and cream cheese.
Ingredients:
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 3 tbsp brown sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 cup raisins (or currants, also the option of adding orange or lemon zests)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 3/4 cup buttermilk (or milk, almond milk + 1 tbsp yogurt)
- (everything is the same except the amount of the buttermilk)
Steps to make Irish soda bread:
- Pre-heat oven to 375F and prepare an ungreased cookie sheet
- in a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients, and mix well. And then cut cold butter into the dry mixture until the texture resembles coarse crumbs (pea-sized). Then mix in the raisins and set aside.
- In a separate bowl, mix the sourdough and the buttermilk together. Slowly add the mixture to the flour/butter mixture and gently combine.
- Try not to mix the dough too much, once it is all combined it is OK even though the dough is a little lumpy.
- Dump the dough onto the cookie sheet and shape it into a round mount. Use oil or flour to keep the dough from sticking to hands. Then push two deep slits into the bread with a knife to form an X into the top of the bread to help bread bake evenly.
- Bake for 45 minutes or a toothpick comes out clean. Cover the bread with foil while baking if it browns too quickly. Once the bread is done it should sound hollow when tapped. Cool on the rack for 20-30 minutes before cutting.
- To freeze wrap in foil and store in a plastic bag.
This is the link to the soda bread recipe that uses sourdough. A great way to use discarded sourdough to create a wonderful tasting loaf.
