My family has a long-standing tradition of celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with a meal of corned beef and cabbage. Though this is of course delicious in its own right, the thing I look forward to every year isn’t the corned beef or the veggies, it’s the Irish Soda Bread. Soda Bread got its name because it was one of the first “quick breads” to be made with sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) as a leavener instead of the more traditional yeast. Baking soda works to make this bread rise by reacting with the lactic acid in the buttermilk that is one of its main ingredients. This creates a nice fluffy loaf with a fun crumb that will keep you on your toes if you try to slice it too thin.
All science aside, Irish Soda Bread is a savory bread with a handful of currants tossed in to give it a little sweet kick. I serve mine cut into wedges with plenty of room temp salted Kerrygold butter to slather on every slice.
This recipe is based on one from the queen, Ina Garten.
Ingredients:
- 4 cups AP flour + extra for dusting
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 4 tbsp cold butter (preferably Kerrygold)
- 1 3/4 cups buttermilk
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup dried currants
- 2 cups boiling water
- 2 tbsp turbinado sugar
Kitchen Tools: wooden spoon, baking sheet, food processor (optional)
Prep Work:
Preheat your oven to 375*F. Place dried currants into a heat-proof bowl and cover with boiling water. Let them soak while you prepare everything else.
In your food processor, combine flour, salt, sugar, and baking soda. Pulse for a minute. Cut your butter into 1/2 tbsp chunks and pulse in the flour mixture and pulse the mixture until butter is in small pea-sized lumps. (Depending on the size of your food processor you may need to do this in batches). Pour contents of food processor into a large mixing bowl.
In a smaller bowl, whisk one egg with buttermilk. Use a strainer or sieve to remove soaked currants from their water bath. Discard the water and toss currants into the mixing bowl. Pour the buttermilk onto everything and use a wooden spoon or spatula to mix it all together. It’s a fairly wet dough, so it will most likely want to stick to your spatula, hands, and anything else that it might come into contact with.
Lightly dust a flat surface with flour. Pour out your dough and knead a few times to create a shaggy loaf. Do not overknead! You aren’t making Dutch Oven Bread here.
Whisk your remaining egg and use pastry brush to egg wash the top and sides of the bread. Dust liberally with turbinado sugar. Use a sharp knife to score an X into the top of your loaf.
Baking:
Place bread on a flour-dusted or parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool on a baking rack and serve at room temp with plenty of Kerrygold butter.
Tips + Tricks:
- If you don’t own a food processor, you can work the butter into small enough crumbles with your hands. Work quickly with very cold butter and crumble the butter into the flour until they are about the size of a pea. Then continue to follow the recipe as before.
- If you can’t find turbinado sugar, you can use any kind of coarse sugar.
