[Cranberry sauce recipe] Irish Soda Bread Recipe and Tutorial

maydang.blogspot.com - In my stream of consciousness, I often ponder the interconnectedness of things. Not just woo-woo spiritual things, which I consider often too, but also more concrete things, such as blog topics. This post about soda bread is no exception.

You may know about my podcast for learners of English (free at www.SlowAmericanEnglish.net and in the iTunes store). For this month's recording I posted an essay about St. Patrick's Day celebrations in the United States. During the research and writing of the podcast, I remembered I'd wanted to learn how to make Irish soda bread ever since my neighbor made a delicious loaf for our block party a few years back (Amie Lukens Kirby, you know who you are). And, viola!, the blog topic for this week was born.

I will also tell you that recently I've been working on a new project with a fellow artist which is also closely connected to this blog. However, I'm not at liberty to disclose more than that at this time (cue cloak-and-dagger music). But I'm very excited about the new collaboration and I'll keep you informed as the project gels.

For this soda bread post, I did a little online research, as usual. This time I found that the Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread is a real thing. Apparently there has been a gross misrepresentation of how a "traditional" Irish soda bread should be made. In fact, soda wasn't even an Irish discovery; that honor goes to Native Americans.

Also, it seems people have been adding sugar and dried fruit and other atrocities to soda bread recipes, which is not in any way authentic. Originally, soda bread was the best bread possible with the few ingredients available at the time. It became prevalent during the late 1800s: the famine had struck Ireland and people had to make do with very little. In the words of the Society, Flour, Salt, Baking Soda, Buttermilk. Anything else added makes it a "Tea Cake!"

So here's my attempt, with a few, yet minimal, added aberrations. I took the recipe from America's Test Kitchen, one of my favorite enterprises. They satisfactorily justified the modifications they made to the Society's basic recipe, plus I knew the result would be marvelous.

So I combined regular AP flour with some cake flour, per the recipe. Since there is no such thing as cake flour here in Germany that I can find, I made my own. You can make it too, by following the instructions on my blog post about flour. After that I added the other dry ingredients, including baking soda, to the flour.

Then I incorporated a little butter into the dry ingredients and rubbed it in until I had a very small crumb.

A little mixing with a fork gave me a ragged, wet dough, which I turned out onto some parchment and kneaded not more than 10 times to get all the flour incorporated. Right about then I realized that this was just biscuit dough and it shouldn't be worked any more than necessary.

I formed it into a loaf, put it in my iron skillet and made the requisite cross on top with a knife:

Into the oven for about 40 minutes and it came out nice and golden brown - a beautiful, giant biscuit. Although not traditional, I brushed the warm loaf with a little melted butter.
Then I had to wait 30 agonizing minutes for the bread too cool before slicing. I think if it's cut earlier than this, the dough would not be cohesive enough to slice well. As it was, I got wonderfully textured slices:

I expected the bread to be more crumbly than it was; you could actually use this for sandwiches. And it didn't really taste like biscuits, either, though I just drizzled it with honey to test it. It's slightly sweet on its own, owing to the addition of a little sugar in this recipe, but I think it would be fine without it.

Irish Soda Bread Recipe
Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup cake flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 tablespoon melted butter, optional

Instructions:Pre-heat the oven to 400 F.

Combine dry ingredients thoroughly in large mixing bowl. Rub the softened butter into the dry ingredients to make a very fine crumb.

Make a well in the center and add the buttermilk. Work the liquid into the flour mixture using a fork until the dough just comes together. Turn the dough out and knead a few times until the loose flour is just moistened. The dough will still be very wet and ragged.

Form a loaf and place in a cast iron skillet. Score a deep cross on top. Place in oven and bake until nicely browned and a knife or toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center, 40 to 45 minutes. Remove from oven and brush with melted butter if desired. Cool for at least 30 minutes before slicing. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature.

And that's it. Use a cookie sheet if you don't have an iron skillet; however, the crust won't be as crunchy. Soda bread is best the day it's baked, but it will keep fairly well for a couple of days if covered tightly.

Although original Irish soda bread was made with whole wheat flour, I think this version would appeal more to the most people. Maybe next year I'll try it with whole wheat and no sugar or butter, like the Society says. I hope they don't come after me in the meantime.

Happy St. Patrick's Day and Erin go bragh!

Photo for No Apparent Reason

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