Irish Soda Bread

Bread Challenge Week 10

Irish Soda Bread is an Irish quick bread of sorts made from just four ingredients. Irish Soda bread is considered a basic table bread and gets it name from the baking soda used as the leavening agent instead of yeast.

I decided to make Irish Soda bread this week to accompany our St. Patrick’s Day feast of corned beef and champ (an Irish mashed potato dish).

The bread came together very quickly, taking only a few minutes to mix and get into the oven. I used Baking Bites, Traditional Irish Soda Bread recipe. I like that this recipe included more information about soda bread and appreciated getting a bit of the author’s point of view along with the recipe. I always enjoy recipes more when there is more to them than a list of ingredients and instructions. I tried to follow the recipe to the letter but there was one huge problem, I ended up with a big sticky gooey glob of dough. In the end I had to add in flour a bit at a time until the dough was manageable. All in all I added about 1/3 cup flour.

The smell of the bread cooking was overwhelming as I had let myself get too hungry before making dinner. I just wanted to dive into the half baked bread and eat it up. It was a good thing that it only took 40 minutes to bake, any longer and I may have eaten it before it was finished baking.

We were so happy with the flavor of the bread. It was easy to doubt that a yummy bread could come from such a short and simple ingredient list, but truly it was a great basic bread. The exterior was nice balance of chewy and crusty and the interior was so soft and dense and delightful. Perfect for eating warm with a little butter.

We will make this bread again. I envision this bread as a side for meals, breakfast, lunch, or dinner. We really enjoyed the simplicity of this bread but there are a lot of variations of this bread including some with caraway seeds, raisins or nuts.

I’m looking forward to playing around with this recipe using different nuts, seeds and flours and if you know my family at all they are looking forward to eating more carbs.

Flavor: 5
Hands on time: 5
Total time: 5
Recipe: 5
versatility: 2
make it again: 5
Catherine: 1
Luke: 1
Maddy: 1

Total Score: 30
(what is this Bread Challenge and how are recipes scored?)

Previous Bread Challenge reviews and scores:
Double Blueberry Muffins – Week 9
Oatmeal Batter Bread – Week 8
Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls – Week 7
Cheesy Pretzels – Week 6
Light Rye Bread – Week 5
Country-Style Whole-Wheat Pita – Week 4
Carrot Raisin Quick Bread – Week 3
Potato Bread – Week 2
Focaccia – Week 1