Soda Bread Recipe

Have you ever eaten a warm, crusty slice of Soda Bread, slathered with a shmear of creamy, melting butter? Pure, unadulterated, quick bread heaven!

Until last week, I had never made a soda bread recipe. I’d never experienced the crisp crackle of slicing through the crunchy, golden brown crust into the soft, tender bread underneath. How had I never tried this drool-worthy quick bread recipe?

Well, needless to say, that mistake has been corrected. And friends, I will not be looking back. This delicious bread will forevermore have a prized spot at the front of my recipe collection.

Like biscuits, soda bread is classified as a quick bread. Both allow you to have homemade bread on your dinner table in a little over 30 minutes. Seriously! 30 minutes to make and bake homemade bread!

Quick breads are a simple, game-changing formula that makes you a respected baker to anyone who has the pleasure of eating a slice of one your freshly baked loaves.

You’re going to rock this quick, easy and delicious recipe. And, you won’t want to make it for only one holiday a year. It’s everyday great bread! You’re going to make it often and become an experienced expert. You’ll be known far and wide as an accomplished baker of bread. You’re kind of a hero. Ya know?

You’ve got this! Let’s make soda bread!

Soda Bread Recipes vs Irish Soda Bread Recipes?

My desire to learn to make Irish Soda Bread came from wanting to share it with you as a St. Patrick’s Day option. It’s a recipe that always pops up in blogs, this time of year, and I was going to jump on the holiday bandwagon. Plus, I was just plain curious, never having eaten it before.

I had to do a LOT of research to not only come up with a final recipe, but to also understand this simple quick bread’s origins. And, my mind was blown to find that the origin is not with the Irish.

Native Americans were actually the first to be documented as using pearl ash, (a naturally occurring form of baking soda), to leaven their bread. The credit for soda bread can be pointed directly to them.

When baking soda was introduced in the United Kingdom, in the late 1830’s, the first examples of soda bread were seen in Ireland. The recipe evolved out of necessity, after the potato famine.

Hungry families needed cheap, hearty food that didn’t require expensive cooking resources. Even those in far-out and remote regions had access to the simple ingredients and tools to make this humble loaf.

So, in the end, I don’t really think it makes sense to argue about the name. Whether you call it Soda Bread or an Irish Soda Bread recipe, it is a long-standing tradition of both the Native American and Irish cultures. They seem to be essentially the same humble, peasant-style loaf that made it possible to feed hungry families, no matter who was making it or where it was made.

I know without a doubt, that whatever name you decide to call it, you will definitely define it as delicious.

Soda Bread or Tea Cake?

The most confusing thing I ran across in my quest to learn how to make soda bread is the WIDE variation in recipes. I found a few simple, 4-ingredient recipes. But, if I’m honest, I probably found more that were actually enriched doughs containing butter and/or eggs and sugar. I was puzzled at the wide use of these extra ingredients, since I understood Irish soda bread recipes to be for hearty, loaves that the poor could afford on a day-to-day basis.

After more reading, I’ve come to realize that those enriched doughs would be considered to be “tea cakes” to soda bread purists. Those traditionalists agree that actual soda bread is only 4 ingredients. Like all recipes over time, even soda bread has evolved to adapt to the available ingredients and personal tastes of those making it.

So, even though I opted for the more traditional approach; my addition of raisins isn’t traditional. It leaves me squarely outside the traditional boundaries of soda bread recipes for those who are purists.

After all those decisions were made, I landed on my final recipe by reading many articles and tons of other people’s recipes. So, mine ends up being adapted from watching videos and reading recipes by Darina Allen and Paul Hollywood.

Darina’s was 100% traditional and Paul’s wasn’t too far off the mark. He did flavor his with cheese and caramelized onions, though. And, he combined white and whole meal flours.

I also preferred one baking temperature rather than changing it part way through.

The Ingredients

Flour: I use plain unbleached all-purpose flour. As with any baking recipe, measuring flour accurately will make or break the success of your finished product. Eventually, I’m going to get an entire post put together about how best to do that. But, in the meantime, always follow the recipe instructions and measure with care. It’s all about the chemistry and ratios.

Baking Soda

Salt

Buttermilk or Sour Milk: There’s really no other option. Plain milk will not work. You need the acid of the buttermilk to react with the alkali of the baking soda to achieve leavening in your loaf. Plus, buttermilk simply takes the bread’s flavor to scrumptious heights!

In the notes section of the recipe card, I give instructions for creating buttermilk/sour milk with apple cider vinegar and whole milk, in case you don’t keep buttermilk on hand.

Golden Raisins: These are 100% optional and definitely not traditional in soda bread. However, they are 100% delicious and add lovely pops of sweetness against the delicious bread. I haven’t tried it, but I think dried cranberries would also be a lovely addition. And, now that I’ve seen the Paul Hollywood video, I’m excited to try out a savory, cheese-flavored Irish soda bread recipe, too.

FAQs about Soda Bread Recipes

A Flour Measuring Pro Tip for Baking

Ideally, you will measure the flour for soda bread, and any other baked good, by weight to get results consistent with what a recipe author achieves. A good kitchen scale with a tare function is an essential kitchen tool for baking. It doesn’t have to be expensive. I think mine was under $25 and I have used it for more than a decade. There are very important reasons for doing this.

Use 450 grams (or 1 pound) of unbleached all purpose flour to make this bread recipe. That amounts to about 4 cups by American standard measurements.

The problem with measuring it by the cup is that your cup, my cup and our neighbor’s cup can all have wildly varying amounts of flour, depending on whether we scoop and swoop or spoon and level the flour into our measuring cups. Whether the flour was aerated or left packed in the bottom of the canister before we started measuring will also affect the amount of flour in the cup.

This is why we have very respected baking organizations that have very different views about the weight of 1 cup of flour. If you look around online, you will find weights that vary from 120 grams to 150 grams. At a difference of 30 grams per cup times 4 cups, you’re looking at a variance of about 1 full cup of flour. Now, do you see why how you measure can have such an impact on your baked goods?

The good news is that pro bakers (and now, you and I) measure out their ingredients by weight. The weight I measure will be the same as the weight you measure and the weight your neighbor measures. It doesn’t change. Weighing flour for baked goods is the surest way to a successful outcome.

Other Delicious Add-In Possibilities for Soda Bread Recipes

I mention raisins, dried cranberries and grated cheese in the post and recipe card. But, there are many other delicious possibilities for getting creative with the flavors of your soda bread.

You can also add a couple Tablespoons of fresh herbs or 2 teaspoons of dried herbs to your dry ingredients to create completely new flavor profiles for the bread. I especially love caraway seeds. DELISH!

Rosemary is a nice complement to bread, too. Try 3/4 teaspoon of dried crushed rosemary leaves in your dry ingredients.

For savory loaves, chopped sun dried tomatoes or black olives would be tasty add-ins. Paul Hollywood even chopped up caramelized onions in his loaf.

I’ve seen several recipes for chocolate soda bread popping up in my searches. I’m not sure how they do theirs, but I would start by replacing 1/2 cup of the flour (56.25 grams) with an equal amount of baking cocoa and see how the dough feels from there.

The other idea that I thought sounded scrumptious was to do some sort of a brown sugar & cinnamon swirl through a loaf. But, that is definitely still in the planning stages. Even if I can’t get a swirl to work, I may still try adding some cinnamon to the dry ingredients of a loaf. I’ll let you know what I figure out.

Get creative. Make the recipe your own and create some homemade bread your family will get excited about.

How to Make this Irish Soda Bread Recipe

1. Preheat the oven to 400° F and add parchment paper to the bottom of a 10″ cast iron skillet or to a baking sheet.
2. Measure your flour into a large mixing bowl. Add the baking soda and salt and stir to evenly distribute them throughout the flour.
3. If you are using add-ins like golden raisins or grated cheese, stir them into the flour, now. This will help to distribute them evenly throughout the final dough. The coating of flour keeps them from clumping together and helps to suspend them in the dough, so they don’t all end up sinking to the bottom of the loaf.
4. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in all but about 2 Tablespoons of the the buttermilk.

5. With your hands or a wooden spoon stir just enough to combine all the ingredients. The mixture should come into the shape of a shaggy, sticky ball with no flour left in the bottom of your bowl. If the dough seems too dry or you can’t incorporate all the flour, add the rest of the buttermilk and stir. Don’t over mix, though. The whole process of measuring ingredients, mixing the bread and shaping the loaf should take only about 5 to 10 minutes, once you have the recipe down.

Shaping the Loaf and Baking

For a visual tutorial of shaping the dough, watch the video in the recipe card, below.

1. Turn the shaggy dough out onto a heavily floured board or counter top.Be sure you’ve floured your hands, too.

2. Begin shaping the loaf into a round by using the palms of your hands to gently press and turn the loaf. Scoop flour against the sides as you do, to keep it from sticking to your hands. Gently tuck the sides under the loaf as you turn and round it, to start creating a smoother surface. This is still a very soft and rough dough, but the surface will become much smoother than when it started.
3. Gently shape the dough into a round disc that is 1 1/2 to 2 inches thick.
4. Dust the top of the loaf with flour and use a bench scraper or sharp knife to cut a cross into the full diameter of the top of the loaf. Cut deeply. You don’t need to cut all the way through, but at least an inch deep. Spread the cuts open slightly to help with even baking.

5. Place the loaf of bread into your prepared skillet or onto the prepared baking sheet.
6. Bake at 425 for 25 to 35 minutes. To tell if the loaf is done check to see that the loaf has risen (will be domed in the center, where it was once flat) and it will be golden brown. The loaf will also sound hollow when thumped on the bottom. The center of the cross will be dry and show no signs of moisture. And a tester inserted into the center should come out clean.
7. Transfer the bread to a wire rack and allow it to cool for 15 to 20 minutes before slicing.

THE RECIPE

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