TWD – Irish Soda Bread

This is a “traditional” Irish soda bread. Though, I’m guessing that whole wheat might be even more-so. Apparently, in Ireland their flour is a bit softer – more like our cake flour in the US. Simply 4 ingredients: flour, salt, baking soda and buttermilk.

There’s really nothing to this recipe. You just stir together the dry ingredients, add the buttermilk, mix it together, give it a quick knead, and then form it, cut a cross into the top and bake!

I ended up making this twice. Both times, just making one-fourth of the recipe, since the cautions were menacing – who needs a brick after a few hours?

Full disclosure – I was in a hurry and used baking powder the first time. The second time, I switched to cake flour (one of my aspirational purchases that hasn’t actually panned out for the intended purpose) as well as the correct baking soda. The first dough was a bit denser, the second lighter – and seemed like it should be nicer.

The first one was actually nicer – it kept for more than a day, and was still tasty. The texture was better. The second (that I expected to be better), just ended up chewy, and not so much “bread-like”, though still good enough – but not nearly as pretty.

This was a fun little challenge. I don’t know if it will be something I make all of the time, but it was pretty yummy and a fun recipe to make.