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You are here: Home / breakfast / Traditional Irish American Soda Bread

Traditional Irish American Soda Bread

April 10, 2013 By Laura 8 Comments

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Traditional Irish American Soda Bread

Soda bread: it’s not just for St. Patrick’s Day anymore.

OK, so that is a little misleading, because as usual I did make this for St. Patrick’s Day, only, you know, on St. Patrick’s Day, leading me to not post it until after the holiday. But seriously, as soon as I bit into one of these all I could do was kick myself for having gotten out of the habit of baking scones. And yes, let’s just call a spade a spade. These American style individual soda breads are just that: scones. With the traditional flavors incorporated by generations of Irish Americans living in the land of plenty, i.e., butter, sugar, raisins and caraway seeds (someday someone will have to explain to me where the caraway seeds come from). Heaven.

Dried Cherry and Hazelnut Soda Bread

Which is not to say that playing with other flavors is not delicious as well. In the days after St. Patrick’s Day, I went on a soda bread tear. For example, in the bread above, I used 2 cups of all purpose flour, 1 cup of white whole wheat flour, and 1 cup of hazelnut meal. I left out the caraway seeds and subbed dried tart cherries for the raisins. These were delicious also, but I should have made them even smaller still as they were heartier than the traditional, all all-purpose flour version.

Traditional Irish American Soda Bread

Now let’s talk about size. In the past I have always made the traditional, single round loaf. It was good, but soda bread does not last long before going stale, and a sliced large loaf of bread goes stale even more quickly. Don’t get me wrong, soda bread will always be best the day it is baked, but with these smaller rounds, if they are not sliced into, they are still pretty tasty the next day.  Further, the best part of soda bread is the crusty, browned surface, lightly or liberally sprinkled with sugar–your choice. With smaller rounds, you get even more of that surface area.

Boy writing about them now, 2 weeks since I made my last batch, I can feel the craving coming on again…

5 from 1 vote
Traditional Irish American Soda Bread
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Traditional Irish American Soda Bread
Adapted from Greg Patent
Cuisine: irish
Keyword: bread
Author: TheSpicedLife
Ingredients
  • 4 cups AP flour plus extra for shaping balls
  • 1/2 cup sugar plus more for sprinkling
  • 1 t salt
  • 1 1/2 t baking powder
  • 4 T (1/4 cup, 1/2 stick) unsalted butter cold, cubed
  • 2 cups dark raisins
  • 1 1/2 T caraway seeds
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 1/3 cups full fat buttermilk
  • 1 t baking soda
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven 375 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat.
  2. Whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder and sugar in a large bowl. Cut the cold butter into the flour mix--I use cold hands to rub it in, until you have what looks kind of like gravel, with butter no larger than pea-sized lumps. Mix in the raisins and caraway seeds.
  3. Whisk together the egg and buttermilk. Whisk in the baking soda. Fold the liquid mixture gently into the flour mixture until evenly moistened--do not worry about lumps.
  4. Set some extra flour out in a shallow bowl. Flour your hands thoroughly and remove about 1/6 of the dough. Pat into a circle and place on the prepared cookie sheet. Repeat, including the flouring of your hands, until you have 6 large balls on a baking sheet.
  5. With a sharp knife, slash an X into the top of each ball. Sprinkle granulated or sanding sugar over each ball.
  6. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the soda bread is golden brown and its internal temperature registers 170 F.
  7. These scone-ish soda breads will last for 24 hours, but are best fresh.

 

As always…

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Filed Under: breakfast, buttermilk, cherries, dried fruit, hazelnuts, quick breads, scones, whole grains Tagged With: bread, buttermilk, caraway seeds, dried fruit, hazelnut, Irish, Irish American, quick bread, scones, soda bread

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Comments

  1. Joanne says

    April 10, 2013 at 6:37 am

    I’ve never been a huge fan of soda bread probably because I’ve only ever had the super dry varieties lol. I’ll have to try baking them in scone form!

    Reply
  2. Ashley says

    April 10, 2013 at 8:12 am

    These look lovely! I’m not a fan of caraway seeds (I’ve tried!!) but I love the caraway-less varieties. Yum!

    Reply
  3. All That's Left Are The Crumbs says

    April 11, 2013 at 3:29 am

    I meant to make some soda bread for St. Patrick’s Day but I forgot all about it. I will have to try your recipe soon to make up for it.

    Reply
  4. Betty Ann @Mango_Queen says

    April 11, 2013 at 11:29 am

    Wow! What a simple recipe for Irish American Soda Bread. I want some with my coffee right now 🙂 Bookmarking this. I will try this soon. Thanks for sharing & the nice blog-visit, Laura!

    Reply
  5. Carrie @ poet in the pantry says

    April 19, 2013 at 3:45 pm

    Glad I’m not the only one who had issues getting Irish soda bread done and up before St. Patrick’s Day this year. 😉 Love that you made it as scones! Yum!

    Reply
  6. Laura @MotherWouldKnow says

    January 22, 2015 at 12:21 pm

    This is close to the recipe my husband’s cousin gave me for traditional Irish American soda bread, but hers uses yogurt. I love that one and I’ll bet this one is delicious too.

    Reply
  7. Susan@LunaCafe says

    January 22, 2015 at 5:34 pm

    5 stars
    Oh my, these look fabulous. I love scones–morning, noon, and night. 🙂 I categorize caraway seed as a savory spice, so am intrigued to taste it in a sweet context.

    Reply
  8. Dorothy at Shockingly Delicious says

    January 23, 2015 at 9:21 am

    Scones are ALWAYS welcome! Yours look wonderful!

    Reply

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Hi! I’m Laura and I am a recovering history major who has re-channeled all of my passion for learning about the history of different countries to learning about their food culture. That doesn’t mean every dish on here is strictly authentic, but it does mean that even my adaptations are not undertaken lightly. My goal is to show you–by doing–that these dishes are possible in your kitchen. Including desserts because I have quite the sweet tooth! Read More…

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