With all of the Irish pubs in Chicago and the consequent massive amounts of Guinness and Jameson consumed, I should be some sort of leading expert on Irish food by now. The fact is, I’ve never had soda bread in the traditional sense before.

The base recipe is probably similar, but the brown bread served with Irish beef stews in this, the city that dyes its rivers green, always has raisins. The addition of dried fruit makes a spotted dog or spotted dick, an appropriately named Irish soda bread variation.

That being said, add a handful of raisins to the following recipe and you get a spotted dick.

Unfortunately, I was giggling like an idiot while writing that.

To get the right texture and tenderness in your soda bread, use coarsely milled whole wheat flour with a low protein content. Here are a few options, in order of desirability:

• Irish-style whole wheat flour
• two parts whole wheat pastry flour to one part coarsely ground wheat flakes, as suggested in the original recipe
• graham flour
• stone ground whole wheat pastry flour
• traditional whole wheat flour

recipe adapted from Jeffrey Hamelman’s Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes
Bread Baking Day #18: Quick Breads hosted by Fun & Food

Irish Soda Bread Recipe

makes one round loaf, about 4 to 6 servings

Ingredients                  Volume          Ounces          Grams
coarse whole wheat flour      1 3/4 cups          8.0          225
pastry flour            1/2 cup + 1 tbsp          2.6           75
baking soda                   1 1/2 tsp
baking powder                   1/2 tsp
salt                            3/4 tsp
sugar (optional)                1/2 tsp
powdered milk (optional)          4 tsp

buttermilk, room temp     1 cup + 2 tbsp          9.3          262

Directions:

Preheat Oven    475ºF / 245ºC

Prepare a sheet pan lined with a silicone mat or parchment paper.

Mix Dry Ingredients
                Place the dry ingredients in a large bowl and whisk
                until thoroughly mixed.

                Pour the buttermilk and mix using a rubber spatula
                only until thoroughly moistened, taking care to
                prevent over-mixing. The dough should be sticky but
                not runny.

Pan             Deposit the dough onto the lined sheet pan. Roughly
                shape into a round by cupping the dough with lightly
                floured hands while rotating. Start from the sides of
                the dough towards the bottom, palms up, repeating as
                necessary.

                Lightly dust the top of the shaped loaf with flour.

                Using a bench scraper or knife, cut the dough about
                3/4 of the way through into 4 equal sections.

Bake            475ºF / 245ºC for 15 minutes. Rotate the sheet pan and
                immediately lower the heat to 450ºF / 230ºC. Bake for
                another 15 minutes, until the ridges are well-browned.

To Serve:

Irish soda bread is best eaten the day it is made. Serve with butter, marmalade, jam, honey, or cream cheese.

Is Irish soda bread supposed to look like a four-leaf clover?

This is a post from Apple Pie, Patis, and Pate
Irish Soda Bread Recipe

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