Irish Soda Bread

Ok. Soooo.. I look Irish. My old high school principal used to say I had "the map of Ireland" in my looks. It got me out of many a detention back in high school I can tell you...

As you might of guessed, he was of Irish decent as well. :)
It causes some confusion on the Aer Lingus as often I am not given customs forms. My husband will get one, but they skip over me entirely! 

For a few years back in my twenties, as I have the "Celtic Look," I figured I would make the most of it  and I got a job at a Irish pub called "Olde Irish Alehouse." I spent an hour before each shift, curling my hair and tucking it into a bouncing pony tail and then served Irish Soda bread and Shepard's Pie to all that came. Strange side note, that bar, locally referred to as "The Alehouse", looked more like the "Cheers" pub than the original "Bull and Finch" pub (the inspiration for the TV show) did on the inside. Dark paneling, brass accents, a bar that stood in the center of the floor with glasses above. Today, it has been remodeled and rebranded as "Waterford's." But I do digress, you came here for a recipe.

I found this recipe as I wanted to make the bread that I served back in the day. Around St. Patrick's Day here in the extended Boston metro area, most local grocery stores and bakeries just sell you stale bread that has little or no taste.  Past that day, you have a very hard time trying to find it. So as ever, I figured... it couldn't be THAT hard to make, and it certainly has to be cheaper than paying $4+ per loaf.

And it is... 

So this is the next "recipe" for my friend (and embroidery student) Kitty Brady. She asked me to list a bunch of my recipes for bread making and you can find those recipes up on the "bread" board (ha!) on my Pinterest page (http://www.pinterest.com/rourri/) as she is looking to take back the bread making and save money too!

Here you go:

Irish Soda Bread

Yield: 2 loaves
Adapted from Margaret M. Johnson's "Irish Heritage Cookbook"
(yes, adjustments have been made...read on below)


Set your oven to 350 degrees

Mix the following dry ingredients in a bowl: 
4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons (+/-  to taste) caraway seeds
2 cups raisins (light or dark is fine)

Mix the liquids together, first making "quick buttermilk"
1 1/4 cup quick buttermilk* (1 1/4 cup whole milk with 1 teaspoon of vinegar)
1/4 cup olive oil (evoo if you wish, I just use whatever is in the pantry)
2 large eggs, lightly beaten

Combine both together, until a soft dough has formed.  Split the dough into two balls. Dust with extra flour to stop the dough from sticking to your hands.

Place on opposite ends of a cookie sheet and make a "Cut" with a knife across the top of each ball of dough. Classically, people make a X cut at the top, but a single cut will do. This just helps with releasing the steam as it cooks. Set your timer for 30-35 minutes at the 350 degree oven temp.

* What is "Quick Buttermilk"? Well, I rarely have regular buttermilk or buttermilk powder in my fridge. Often after using just a cup or 2 TBS of it in whatever recipe, the rest just expires as I don't have the time to do more than the recipe that I had intended to do. This saves me money and cuts down on waste. If you *do* happen to have buttermilk in your fridge, by all means use it. But the vinegar and the milk trick works wonders. Just let it sit for a few minutes after you add the vinegar, then add to the rest of the liquids bowl.


Ok, just to clarify a few points about what I did in the recipe and why...

Most recipes for bread have a flour, water, oil and levining plus leaving control component.
In this case: Flour, Milk, Olive Oil, Bicarbonate of Sodas, Salt

The flour has some protein, and the milk has some sugar...and it all just works. Well, the original recipe called for Canola Oil or Veg oil. Not that I am a "clean" eating nut, as that word "clean foods" means lots of different things to many people, but I just don't like the health rating of Canola Oil as there is no such plant called a Canola plant. In my book that oil is no where close to any kind of "base component" source of food. It is highly processed. One could argue the point of the all purpose flour being a high processed food, but I find that is a livable choice as I use King Arthur flour, and the processing does not include bleaching or other higher processes that other white flours have. You could swap whole wheat flour in there, but then you would have to monkey with the ratios of liquid as whole wheat flour does not behave the same as all purpose... it was beyond the scope of this recipe.
Oil for oil works. Unless you substitute butter (oh yum) for the oil. Do understand though, the butter has MORE than oil in there... it has milk solids, proteins...and unless you buy "unsalted" butter on a regular basis and have it to use here, it has salt as well. The olive oil swaps out fairly reliably here. Again, make your own "Clean Eating" choices... This is what works for me.

The flavor needed to be amped up from the original recipe as I wanted to match the taste from what I remembered at the "Alehouse". I ended up by doubling the amount of raisins and adding more caraway. This is as close to what I could come to for what they used to serve back in the day. A copycat recipe from the Olde Irish Alehouse days.

From what I understand in Ireland, everyone has their own
take on soda bread. This is just my take on it or "recipe" if you will. There are other variations out there, and I encourage you to look for one that will be yours if this isn't your kind of "authentic".

So try it, tinker with it...and enjoy!