White Soda Bread

St. Paddy’s Day’s around the corner. Are you ready? You’ve got the Guinness, the Kerrygold, the cabbage, the floury potatoes (russets here; golden wonders there), the corned beef (here; there it would be a loin of bacon to simmer and glaze. A loin of bacon is a cured pork loin; bacon as we know it would be called rashers). So why not also stir up a quick soda bread?

The soda bread peddled in US supermarkets is nothing like real Irish soda bread. This often daily baked soda bread isn’t sugared and dotted with raisins (that would be Spotted Dog). The ordinary soda bread, once baked in a heavy iron pot slung over a glowing peat fire, is quick to stir together and usually contains just four ingredients: flour, salt, baking soda and butter milk. This bread works perfectly with Irish flour which is milled from soft wheat and lends a light loaf even when made with flakey whole wheat flour.  Alas, we don’t see an equivalent of this brown flour over here. 

To encourage you to bake and to keep matters simple, I think most people have a supply of basic all-purpose white flour on hand. With the other three ingredients and under an hour, you’ll have fresh bread. Finding buttermilk can prove a problem. Cultured buttermilk is common in Irish shops, but here it can sometimes be unavailable.  There was none to be found in the large chain supermarket where I shopped last week. Easy problem to solve—make your own. If you have plain yogurt and regular milk, a facsimile of buttermilk will be easily organized, cost considerably less plus you can make just what you need. All you need to do is plan ahead. The night before baking warm 7 oz. whole milk just to lukewarm. Pour it in a glass jar and stir in 1 oz. of plain yogurt. Twist on the lid, wrap the jar in a towel and set it in a warm corner overnight. In the morning you’ll have a cultured milk that will serve as buttermilk.

four ingredients

 

Soda bread is traditionally mixed by forming a claw with your spread fingers, but since many are hesitant to fully get their hands into a sticky dough, you may quickly stir the mix together with a flexible plastic spatula and use you hand just to finish the dough, rolling it into a ball.  For a round loaf, bake the bread in a small cast iron skillet, a pie plate or any round baking dish. A rectangular bread pan may also be used. Slip a soda bread in the oven the next time you roast a chicken, bake a tart or a few potatoes and make your self proud.

Soda bread is not a keeper. So to begin I suggest you make a small loaf and see how it goes. The following recipe will make almost a pound loaf—good to serve with supper and then for toast the next morning. 

Celebrate the Irish and stir up a loaf of soda bread.

White Soda Bread

8 oz. all purpose flour (1 ½ cups plus 2 tablespoons)

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

7-8 fl. oz. buttermilk*  (1 cup)

*see above note on how to prepare cultured buttermilk or in a hurry stir 1 tablespoon white vinegar into a cup of milk and wait 10 minutes. If using low fat milk, rub a tablespoon of butter into the flour mixture.

Preheat the oven to 450°

Sift the flour, salt, soda together twice.

Place the dry ingredients in a wide shallow bowl; make a well in the center. Pour almost all of the shaken buttermilk into the well and quickly stir the dry ingredients into the buttermilk with swift strokes but do not beat. Add the last bit of buttermilk if needed. Scrape the dough from the sides of the bowl into a rough soft ball. 

make a well

pour in buttermilk

soft dough

Sprinkle over a little flour and use your hands to roll the dough into a neat ball. Wash you hands, dust the ball of dough with flour and using you hand and a flat plastic spatula, lift the ball into a greased iron skillet, loaf pan or pie plate. 

cut cross and let fairies out

fill the oven

Use a sharp knife to cut a deep cross over the top and give the four corners a quick knife poke (to let the fairies out) before slipping the bread into a hot oven. Bake for 15 minutes then reduce the heat to 400° and continue to bake for a further 18-20 minutes or until nicely browned. Tip the bread out onto a wire rack to cool. It should sound hollow when knocked on the bottom. Allow the loaf to cool before slicing.  Makes one medium loaf.

“May the road rise up to meet you, 

May the wind be always at your back”