Traditional Irish Soda Bread

Soda Bread is a quick bread that uses bicarbonate of soda and buttermilk as the leavening agents rather than the more commonly used yeast.

Soda bread today is often associated with Ireland but the idea of soda bread goes back as far as the Native Americans, they used Pot Ash and an acidic liquid to form the chemical reaction that rises the bread.

The oldest known published recipe of Irish Soda bread is from 1836 in a Newspaper in County Down. Traditional Soda bread has only four ingredients in it. Flour, Bicarbonate of Soda (Baking Soda), Buttermilk (Sour Milk) and salt, nothing more. If I type in Soda Bread Recipe into Google I get over 17,000 recipes, however many of these add things like raisins (which makes it Spotted Dog, not to be confused with Spotted Dick), sugar, whisky, eggs and many other non-traditional things.

I used this recipe during St Patrick's Day along with other Traditional Irish foods. It was a big hit with my family (who are all Finnish and thus not so well educated into the fineries of Irish cuisine). It is so quick to make and so morish, that you will be making this every few days just to keep up with the demand.

So for you to replicate this tasty, quick traditional Irish bread you will need:-

450g Plain White Flour
1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
1 tsp Salt
400ml Buttermilk

Preheat your oven to 220 oC. Grease a cake pan or oven pan (I use an old deep drying pan with the handle taken off), or a Dutch Oven if you have one.
In a bowl mix your dry ingredients and then add the buttermilk, using a rubber spatula mixing to make a stickyish dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently (don't heavily knead or for too long as you will knock out all the gases needed for the rising).
Shape into a round and score a cross in the top. Put into your greased pan and then cover with another pan (I used another old pan with no handle), this will create the bastible pot (Irish Dutch oven), or put the lid on if you are using a Dutch oven.
Put in oven and cook for 30 minutes, then remove the covering and bake for a further 15 minutes.
It will have gone a nice golden colour, to check it is ready turn over and tap the bottom of your bread. If it sounds hollow then it is ready.
If not using straight away cover with a tea towel and sprinkle some water on it, this will help it stay moist.

So there you have it, simple, Traditional Irish Soda bread. I guarantee you will want to replace you normal loaf after you have tried this.