Irish Soda Bread Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What makes Irish soda bread different? ›

Irish soda bread is prepared without yeast. Traditionally it has just four ingredients: flour, baking soda, salt, and buttermilk. The baking soda and buttermilk react to cause the dough to rise. In Ireland, soda bread is often made from stone-ground whole-wheat flour, though white flour versions are available.

It's important to remember no to overmix your ingredients. Irish Soda Bread is a dense bread, similar to a scone, but can easily become dry if overmixed. Quickly add the wet ingredients to a well you've made in the dry ingredients, and mix with your hands or a dough hook until it just comes together.

Irish Tea Time: Enjoy Irish Soda Bread smeared with creamy Irish butter and your favorite jam or marmalade. Lemon curd and traditional clotted cream also go well with the bread's dense crumb and tangy buttermilk flavor.

In Ulster, the wholemeal variety is usually known as wheaten bread and is normally sweetened, while the term "soda bread" is restricted to the white savoury form. In the southern provinces of Ireland, the wholemeal variety is usually known as brown bread and is almost identical to the Ulster wheaten.

Although soda bread is ideal for serving at room temperature, it is better to serve it warm. The thick and cakey texture of the bread and warm temperature brings out its hearty flavors. If you can't have it fresh from the over at least have it toasted.

Your oven is too hot if it is uncooked in the center. Try lowering the temp on your oven by 25F and extending the bake time. Don't put anything on the top of the bread to aid in browning until the last few min. of cooking, and use an instant read thermometer (target temp to pull is 190F).

And finally, don't immediately cut into the Fast Irish Soda bread when you pull it out of the oven. Although this bread is best served warm, cutting into it too quickly will turn the bread gummy.

The four ingredients were soft wheat flour, salt, baking soda and sour milk (buttermilk is more commonly used today). Since yeast wasn't readily available, the combination of baking soda and buttermilk acted as the leavening agent, causing the bread to rise.

The main difference between sourdough bread and soda bread is in its leavening agent – sourdough bread rises due to the gasses released from yeast and bacteria fermentation, while soda bread rises from the gasses produced during the chemical interaction between baking soda and acids in the dough.

Nutrition Notes

Whole-wheat soda bread is a healthy addition to your plate! One serving—a 1/2-inch-thick slice—provides complex carbohydrates for sustained energy, protein, fiber, and vitamins and minerals.

What is another name for Irish soda bread? ›

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.

A traditional full Irish breakfast comprises bacon, sausage, eggs, potatoes, beans, soda bread or toast, tomatoes, mushrooms, and white or black pudding. For those wondering, black pudding coagulates the pig's blood into a sausage form. The white pudding is simply a pork sausage, usually flat.

As to why it's important to mark the bread with a cross and “let the fairies out”, edible-ireland.com explains: “Superstition says that bread marked with a cross wards off evil, but the Irish slant is that it protects it from the fairies, who were liable to jinx your baking”.

Well… it's actually the same thing. In Northern Ireland we call this wheaten bread, but in the South it's known as soda bread, brown bread, bran bread etc. Whatever way you say it, this is the best thing to come out of Ireland since… sliced bread!

It tastes similar to scones or biscuits but is very lightly sweet. How to serve Soda Bread? We love to serve soda bread is delicious served as a side with Irish butter and honey, or jam. It's a lightly sweet bread so it pairs well with coffee or tea.

It falls into this category because it doesn't use yeast, but instead uses baking soda as the leavening agent. It is often made with buttermilk which reacts with the soda to form bubbles of carbon dioxide. Quick breads are made more quickly because one doesn't need to wait for yeast to make the dough rise.

Irish soda bread is a crumbly, tangy, scone-like quick bread made with flour, baking soda, salt and buttermilk. The acidity of buttermilk interacts with the alkaline properties of baking soda to create the bread's leavening without the use of yeast.

Irish soda bread is a dense and tender quick bread with a subtle tangy buttermilk flavor.

The primary difference between a sourdough and a normal bread is that while a regular bread is kneaded with packaged yeast, sourdough bread is leavened with Lactobacillus bacteria and wild yeasts.