St. Patrick's Day Irish Soda Bread Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What are the ingredients of Irish soda bread? ›

The essential ingredients in traditional Irish soda bread are flour, baking soda, salt, and buttermilk. The acid in buttermilk reacts with the base of the baking soda to provide the bread's leavening. This leavening from buttermilk and baking soda is what gives the bread its name: "soda bread."

Irish soda bread is made with just one flour

The primary difference between Irish soda bread and Irish brown bread is the ingredients that go into making them. While there is some overlap — the buttermilk and baking soda, in particular — the two recipes diverge from there. Most notable is the selection of flour.

Make sure you are using the correct amount of baking soda in the recipe. Too much or too little can result in a crumbly loaf. It's also possible that your oven wasn't hot enough when you baked the bread. Make sure to preheat your oven before baking Irish soda bread and don't open it frequently during the baking time.

If you feel like you have to knead the dough together, don't knead more than 5-6 times, max. Too much kneading will create a hard dense crumb on the bread. Rule of thumb with no yeast breads, the less kneading the softer the crumb.

1 slice of irish soda bread (Bakery Street) contains 290 Calories. The macronutrient breakdown is 57% carbs, 31% fat, and 12% protein. This is a good source of protein (16% of your Daily Value), potassium (8% of your Daily Value), and calcium (22% of your Daily Value).

Irish soda bread has a couple of other names, too: When we attended a class at the famous Ballymaloe Cookery School in County Cork, Ireland, they made this loaf and called it a Spotted Dog. It's also called white soda bread, American Irish soda bread, or fruit soda bread.

Irish soda bread was first created in the 1830s, when baking soda was first introduced to the UK. At the time, Ireland was facing financial hardship and lack of resources, so they turned to soda bread out of neccessity, it was inexpensive and required few ingredients.

Soda bread

"When people feel unwell after eating bread, they often blame gluten, but many times it's due to a yeast intolerance," says nutritional therapist Lucia Stansbie of foodpowernutrition.com. "Soda bread is a good choice as baking soda is used instead of yeast, causing less bloating."

The most traditional doneness test calls for thumping the hot bread in the center to hear if it's hollow-sounding. A more foolproof indication is temperature; the loaf will register 200°F to 205°F when an instant-read thermometer is inserted in the center of the bread.

Can you overcook soda bread? ›

If you've ever tried Irish soda bread and not liked it, don't go running off yet! Chances are good that the bread you ate suffered from one of three common problems: improper amount of baking soda (a gross, salty-bitter taste), over cooking (a dry, chalky texture), or undercooking (a soggy, doughy center).

Add Sugar

Adding sugar weakens the gluten structure, absorbs water, and eventually makes the bread lighter and softer. As a result, sugar improves the bread's taste, structure and texture. Yeast also eats up sugar to produce carbon dioxide, which raises the dough and makes bread fluffy.

Add a little extra flour if you find the dough is too wet and sticky.

In Ireland, soda bread is often made from stone-ground whole-wheat flour, though white flour versions are available. Stateside, we generally enjoy white soda bread made with all-purpose white flour. In both countries, soda bread is generally shaped into a round.

The basic ingredients of soda bread are flour, baking soda, salt, and buttermilk. The buttermilk contains lactic acid, which reacts with the baking soda to form bubbles of carbon dioxide. Other ingredients can be added, such as butter, egg, raisins, or nuts.

Overview: How to Make Irish Soda Bread

Irish soda bread dough comes together in about 10 minutes. You need buttermilk, egg, flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and butter. Whisk buttermilk and 1 egg together. Whisk the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt together in another bowl.

In the United States, "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.

The baking soda does the job of yeast and makes the bread rise. Since it's not as powerful as yeast, the bread is dense rather than fluffy. It's beautiful and delicious!