Irish Soda Bread

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I realized, somewhat to my horror, that I had left an important thing out of the post about our St. Patrick's Day dinner on Sunday. It was when Kayte asked about Irish Soda Bread that I went 'oops'. To make matters worse, it was the one thing that mom had contributed to the dinner - rising from her sick bed where she has languished like Camile for the last two weeks, to toss together the ingredients to make the bread. Happily she never reads my blog so she will never know - shhhhhh!

Anyway.

On this side of the pond, "Irish soda bread" generally means a somewhat sweet white bread made with eggs and butter and studded with raisins and caraway seeds — the "soda" in the name comes from the baking soda (or "bread soda" in Ireland) used to leaven it instead of yeast and kneading. But some people, like the founders of the U.S.-based Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread, insist that there's nothing Irish about this bread — that it's an American invention or at least a corruption of the Irish original.

What is the truth?

Bread soda was introduced in Ireland during the early 1800s and it suddenly meant that people who didn't have an oven — and virtually nobody had an oven back then — could make soda bread. They cooked the bread in what's called a bastible — a big cast-iron pot with a lid on it that would have been put right onto the coals or onto the turf fire. The great thing about soda is that it was not so perishable and it would have been relatively inexpensive. And they would have had buttermilk from the cows [old-fashioned buttermilk is a by-product of making butter] and they would have been growing wheat, so they would have had flour.

There you have it - Irish Soda is sort of Irish. Like so many things in life - don't question, just go with if it seems to work.

I've had lots of soda bread over the years and would generally describe it as nasty. I don't know what folks were using for a recipe but it was more baking soda than anything else - the result was a dense lump of cooked dough that was unappealing and should really have been used to fill the potholes that appear everywhere at this time of year.

Then we had a discovery on the Bon Appetit website back in 2006. This recipe makes a delicious loaf of soda bread that is truly amazing. It was enough to convert me from a despiser of the stuff to one who is enamoured of it. Really, it was a miraculous event (although not along the lines of St. Patrick ridding the Emerald Isle of snakes).

Whip up a loaf of this for friends and family today and you'll be a modern day St. Patrick's Day hero!

Enjoy.

Irish Soda Bread

Nonstick vegetable oil spray
2 cups all purpose flour
5 tablespoons sugar, divided
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons butter, chilled, cut into cubes
1 cup buttermilk
2/3 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 375°F. Spray 8-inch-diameter cake pan with nonstick spray. Whisk flour, 4 tablespoons sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in large bowl to blend. Add butter. Using fingertips, rub in until coarse meal forms. Make well in center of flour mixture. Add buttermilk. Gradually stir dry ingredients into milk to blend. Mix in raisins.

Using floured hands, shape dough into ball. Transfer to prepared pan and flatten slightly (dough will not come to edges of pan). Sprinkle dough with remaining 1 tablespoon sugar.

Bake bread until brown and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Cool bread in pan 10 minutes. Transfer to rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Comments

[sandrac]

Strangely, I have never had any type of soda bread -- even though me old Da was from Ireland!

Your recipe looks very good and when I take a break from my rather severe diet, I must give it a try.

Love the Savage Chickens cartoon.

[Laura]

This is great Jerry! There's an Irish Pub in my neighborhood that makes a tasty soda bread and I've always meant to make it. Now I have a recipe, so it might actually happen. 8) Thanks!

[Kayte]

Oh, I am so glad "Mom" got to have her contribution blogged! Yep, same recipe I am using (I have my Granny's also, but this one is much more to the guys' liking as it has more sugar in it and isn't as dry). When Granny made hers, and there was always a little left over, they would crumble it in a bowl and splash a little milk on it and eat it like that...I wouldn't know, as there is exactly one small slice left here and it will be gone by morning on Matt's way to swim practice! Your loaf looks very good...and very much like mine, so I'm excited because my food never looks as good as yours!

[girasoli]

I've never even heard of Irish Soda Bread. I am part Irish and grew up in an area with many people of Irish heritage. I would love to give this bread a try sometime but don't think I will find any here in Hawaii.

[JDeQ]

Sandra - Savage chickens are wonderful, aren't they!

Laura - it is easy - give it a shot.

Kayte - I know what you mean about the leftovers. They don't last long here either.

Girasoli - funny - Irish Soda bread is EVERYWHERE around here. I saw lots in upstate NY last weekend too. Mind you, I would imagine there would be far more asian influenced foods where you are.

[Robert]

Your soda bread looks very different to any that I had in Ireland. To start with it is white. It also has a much finer texture (going on the photo) than is normal for soda breads, which tend to be more crumbly.

That said, it does look suspiciously like the divine raisin bread we used to get as kids, a recipe for which I have never been able to get my hands on.

Methinks I will be giving this a go.

[Jerry]

Robert - there was a big article in the NY Times this year explaining that what we North American's call Irish Soda Bread isn't Irish at all. It is really a nice tea bread - great with some jem or jelly . . .MMMMM