Irish recipe
How to make Soda bread
Arán sóide
All of Ireland
A quick bread made with flour, buttermilk, salt and bread soda (baking soda) instead of yeast. Brown soda bread, made with wholemeal flour, is served with soup, smoked salmon or simply butter.
Ingredients
- 250 g wholemeal flour
- 200 g plain white flour, plus a little for dusting
- 1 level teaspoon bread soda (baking soda), sieved
- 1 teaspoon salt
- About 400 ml buttermilk
Method
- Heat the oven to 220 °C and dust a baking tray with flour.
- Mix the flours, bread soda and salt in a large bowl and make a well in the middle.
- Pour in most of the buttermilk and mix quickly with your hand or a spoon to a soft, slightly sticky dough, adding more buttermilk if it is dry. Do not knead.
- Turn it out onto a floured surface, shape it gently into a round about 4 cm high and put it on the tray.
- Cut a deep cross over the top with a floured knife.
- Bake for 15 minutes, then lower the oven to 200 °C and bake for about 25 minutes more. The loaf is done when it sounds hollow when tapped underneath. Cool on a rack under a clean tea towel.
Made it at home? Tick it off and it goes into your kitchen passport.
A deep cross is cut into the top before baking. It helps the loaf rise and cook through, and folklore says it also blesses the bread or lets the fairies out.
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