Irish Soda Bread Recipe – Love and Lemons

Made with 8 easy elements, this Irish soda bread recipe is fast, straightforward, and scrumptious. Serve it heat with butter, jam, or a bowl of soup or stew!

This Irish soda bread recipe is the quickest, easiest method I do know to make a terrific loaf of bread at house. It requires 8 fundamental elements, and you’ll combine up the dough and get it into the oven in beneath 20 minutes—no rising required! It bakes up with a crisp, golden brown crust and a young, buttery inside that’s studded with candy dried currants. Make it for St. Patrick’s Day this weekend…after which, hold making it! This Irish soda bread recipe is means too easy and means too good to simply be a once-a-year deal with.

What’s soda bread?

However very first thing’s first! What’s soda bread, anyway? This Irish fast bread will get its title from the truth that its leavening agent is baking soda, not yeast. In its easiest kind, it consists of 4 elements: flour, buttermilk, baking soda, and salt. My recipe, together with many different American soda bread recipes, takes it in a barely sweeter, richer path by including butter, sugar, eggs, and currants or raisins. Caraway seeds are additionally a standard addition, although I’ve omitted them right here.

Take pleasure in Irish soda bread alongside your St. Patrick’s Day feast of corned beef and cabbage (or my cabbage soup!), or serve it heat with a slather of butter and/or jam.

Irish Soda Bread Recipe Components

Right here’s what you’ll have to make this Irish soda bread recipe:

• Baking soda, after all! It leavens the bread.
• All-purpose flour – Spoon and stage it to keep away from packing an excessive amount of into your measuring cup. If you happen to choose to weigh your flour, you’ll want 438g, plus extra for kneading the dough.
• Buttermilk – It provides moisture to the loaf, however that’s not all! Its acidity is essential for activating the baking soda, serving to the bread to rise.
• An egg – It provides additional rise and richness.
• Butter – It provides the bread a yummy buttery taste.
• Cane sugar and dried currants – They add sweetness to the loaf. No currants helpful? Raisins work too!
• And sea salt – To make all of the flavors pop!

Discover the entire recipe with measurements beneath.

The best way to Make Irish Soda Bread

As bread recipes go, this Irish soda bread couldn’t be less complicated! Right here’s how one can make it:

First, whisk collectively the buttermilk and egg. To avoid wasting myself a dish, I like to mix them within the liquid measuring cup that I take advantage of to measure the buttermilk.

Subsequent, mix the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a big bowl. Whisk completely to evenly incorporate the baking soda with the flour.

Minimize the butter into small cubes and add it to flour combination. Toss to coat it within the flour, then use your arms to work it into the dry elements till it’s in roughly pea-sized items. Combine within the currants.

Then, add the buttermilk combination. Make a effectively within the middle of the flour combination and pour within the buttermilk and egg. Stir with a spatula or picket spoon till the moist and dry elements come collectively right into a shaggy dough.

Switch the dough to a calmly floured floor and knead to kind it right into a ball. It must be delicate, however not too sticky.

If it’s very sticky, work in a bit extra flour. If it’s dry, knead in a bit of extra buttermilk.

Then, bake! Switch the dough ball to a parchment-lined sheet pan (a cast-iron skillet works too!) and use a pointy knife to attain the highest with a 1/2-inch-deep cross. This enables warmth to entry the center of the loaf. Pop the loaf right into a 400°F oven and bake till golden brown, 45 to 50 minutes. You’ll know the loaf is prepared if it makes a hole sound while you faucet the underside.

Let the soda bread cool for 10 minutes on the baking sheet earlier than transferring it to a wire rack to proceed cooling. Serve heat or at room temperature. Take pleasure in!

Recipe Ideas

• Currants prefer to clump. Make certain to interrupt them up earlier than you add them to the flour combination. If the currants are clumped collectively once they go into the dough, they’ll be clumped collectively within the loaf!
• Rating the highest with a cross. It provides Irish soda bread its signature look and helps the loaf prepare dinner by means of within the center.
• Foil is your pal. Is your Irish soda bread getting too darkish earlier than the center has cooked by means of? Tent the loaf with a sheet of aluminum foil and proceed to bake.
• No buttermilk? No downside. Although I like this recipe greatest when it’s made with buttermilk, you need to use a buttermilk substitute if vital. Squeeze 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon recent lemon juice into the underside of a liquid measuring cup. Then, fill the cup with common milk or unsweetened almond milk to the 1 1/3 cup line. Let stand for five minutes earlier than continuing with the recipe.
• Freeze it. Irish soda bread dries out QUICK. Take pleasure in some recent on the day that it’s baked, after which slice the remaining and stash it within the freezer. The frozen slices toast up superbly and are scrumptious with a slather of butter or jam!

Extra Favourite Bread Recipes

If you happen to love this Irish soda bread, attempt considered one of these straightforward do-it-yourself bread recipes subsequent: