Irish Soda Bread

Irish soda bread on a tea towel from Australia

Although our Nana (Rowena Leonard) was a MacLean of Scottish decent, and we most often associate Cape Breton, Nova Scotia with its Scottish heritage, the Leonard family did have ancestors from Ireland. And if that’s not a good enough reason to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, there was of course Gordon Bingham who married my Aunt Edna (Leonard). Uncle Gordon was from Australia, but he had originally emigrated from Ireland. He spent his younger years in County Down in the northeast of Ireland.

County Down, Ireland

Gordon (born 1941) on the far left with his family.
Mom and Dad and six kids (plus two extra people in the photo).
Photo taken in Australia a few years after leaving Ireland.

Uncle Gordon Bingham on the far left
Left to right: Gordon, James,
John and Verna Holmes, Alyson Bingham,
Sheila and Thomas Holmes



Making Irish Soda Bread is a common tradition in many homes on St Patrick’s Day, including the Hayden-Holmes family. Starting in the 1800’s soda breads were the most commonly made bread in Ireland. With increased poverty and hunger after the potato famines, this was the easiest and least expensive bread to put on the table every day, and was often the only thing on the table. This bread was particularly ideal for rural Irish homes because it used only the most basic and readily-available ingredients: flour, salt, baking soda and sour milk.

Traditional way to make soda bread.

Because of the kind of wheat grown in Ireland’s climate (called “soft wheat”) these soda “quick breads” were used in place of recipes requiring yeast. Although we normally bake soda bread on a baking sheet or cookie sheet, in earlier times, before ovens were commonplace, most families had kitchens with open hearths. So this “cake-style” soda bread was routinely made in deep, lidded casseroles hanging over the open fire or sitting right in it.

This bread is best while it’s still warm but it can be hard to handle or slice when it’s hot. It goes well with a stew, chowder, soup, or any meal where you need some bread to soak up the gravy.

So here you go, the recipe.

Irish Soda Bread

Irish soda bread (and butter) with Campbell's tomato soup

Preheat oven to 350°F

Ingredients:

4 cup all purpose (white) flour
You can also try different combinations of flours
(see below)
2 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter
1¾ cups buttermilk

Baking Tip:

Making a replacement for buttermilk:
You can make your own sour milk to use in place of buttermilk but you need the acidity of this liquid to mix with the baking soda for the leavening of the bread. You would simply mix 1¾ milk with 2 tbsp. vinegar in a glass measuring cup, and the milk will go sour. Instead of buying fresh buttermilk I use powdered buttermilk from the health food store which you simply mix with water. Buttermilk, by the way, sounds like it would be full of fat but it’s not.

Instructions:

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. You can sift the ingredients together to be sure the soda is evenly distributed, but it is not necessary. With a pastry blender (or 2 knives) cut in butter until crumbly. Add buttermilk and stir to make a soft dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured counter and knead about 10 times until smooth. I use a large flattish stainless steel bowl and just knead it right in the bowl. Note: you can knead the bread with a food processor with the correct attachment but be careful not to mix it for too long or the bread won’t rise well and will be heavy.

Before and After, made entirely by hand.

Made entirely in the food processor, start to finish

Place the ball of dough on a greased baking sheet (we use parchment paper); flatten slightly into a circle about 2 ½ inches thick. On the top cut a large cross at least ¼ inch deep (a wet knife makes this easier). Irish folklore says the cross lets the evil spirits out or keeps the devil away, but really it just lets the bread rise and “flower” correctly. Bake in 350° F oven for 50 minutes to an 1 hour, or until toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean. Makes 1 loaf (about 16 slices).

This is a quick and easy recipe to do with kids and they like to get their hands a little messy and knead the bread. The first time we made this Mitchell and Taylor scored their initials into their loaves. This was whole wheat "brown" soda bread but they now they prefer the white bread. Even our picky eater Taylor likes this recipe. This year she suggested we try using this bread for grilled cheese sandwiches.


Traditional Brown Soda Bread

An alternative to the soda bread made with white flour is to replace the white flour with whole wheat flour, up to 3 of the 4 cups of flour, keeping one cup as all purpose white flour.

Five-Grain Soda Bread

An alternative to the white or whole wheat soda bread is a five-grain soda bread. I used to make this when I was eliminating wheat from my diet, using spelt flour to replace the whole wheat flour. For the recipe above you would replace the 3 cups whole wheat flour with a mix of grains: ¾ cup each of whole wheat, rye flour, graham flour and rolled oats. If you don’t have all of these flours replace with a combination of flours to 3¼ cups flour and ¾ oats. Because of the change in flours this recipe recommends 1 tbsp. baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda, ½ salt, and 3 tbsp. of soft margarine, vegetable oil or butter (at room temperature).

Happy St. Patrick's Day
Mitchell had soda bread with butter and raspberry jam for breakfast.