This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy.
I was all set to complicate Irish soda bread by making a yeasted version when I started looking into its history and discovered that the soda — the baking soda — is perhaps the most traditional part of the bread, much more so than butter, sugar, eggs and raisins, in fact, which likely entered the equation when the bread crossed the pond.
Inspired by that article, I made a traditional loaf of soda bread with flour, salt, buttermilk and baking soda, and while it was perfectly edible, I found myself missing the richness of eggs and sugar, the scone-like texture created by the addition of butter…what can I say, I’m American!
Here, I’ve added a bit of the riches back in: one egg, 1 tablespoon of sugar, and a couple tablespoons of melted butter, which produces a loaf that still resembles a giant biscuit, but less so.
There are two recipes below, one that calls for 100% all-purpose flour — the horror! — and one that calls for a mix of whole wheat, all-purpose, and wheat germ, which produces a slightly denser but no less delicious, chewy, tangy loaf. Each dough takes about 5 minutes to mix-up and each will be ready to be slathered with butter and marmalade about an hour later.
Irish Soda Bread in 3 Simple Steps
- Whisk together the dry ingredients.
- Add the wet ingredients: a mix of buttermilk, melted butter, and egg.
- Form into a ball using floured hands, transfer to a cast iron skillet, and score.
- Bake until golden.
- When cool enough to handle, slice it up.
- Slather with butter or orange marmalade.
Love this Argyle Cheese Farmer buttermilk:
This is the soda bread when made with a mix of all-purpose and whole wheat flour as well as wheat germ:
Whole grain soda bread, sliced:
Super Simple Irish Soda Bread
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 40 minutes
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 1 loaf
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeDescription
This recipe is inspired by this one from Simply Recipes. I add more salt — I find 2 teaspoons of salt for every 4 cups of flour to be about right. And instead of working 4 tablespoons of butter into the dough as you would for biscuits or scones, I use 2 tablespoons of melted butter. This Irish soda bread still resembles a biscuit but has less of that biscuity/scone feel. If you want to use whole grain flour in your soda bread, use these ingredients, which are inspired by an America’s Test Kitchen recipe, in place of the 4 cups all-purpose flour:
- 2 cups (256 g) all-purpose flour
- 1½ cups (192 g) whole wheat flour
- ½ cup (55 g) wheat germ
Ingredients
- 4 cups (510 g) all-purpose flour, see notes above for making it whole grain
- 2 teaspoons (10 g) kosher salt
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 egg
- 1¾ cups buttermilk
- 2 tablespoons melted butter
- room temperature butter for greasing
- flour for dusting
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Whisk together the flour, salt, sugar, and baking soda.
- In a medium bowl, beat the egg and buttermilk. Add the melted butter and stir to combine. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir with a rubber spatula until combined. Mixture will be sticky. Grease a 9- or 10-inch cast iron skillet (or other similarly sized vessel) with softened butter. Set aside.
- Lightly flour your hands and sprinkle a little flour over the sticky dough ball. Use your hands to scrape the dough from the sides of the bowl and to quickly shape the mass into a ball, kneading lightly if necessary. Transfer to prepared skillet. Sprinkle with a teensy bit more flour. Use a sharp knife to make an X across the top of the dough ball. Place in oven and bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until lightly golden and bottom sounds hollow when tapped. Remove from oven, transfer to cooling rack, and let cool for 15 minutes before slicing.
- Category: Bread
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: Irish
Keywords: soda bread, St. Patrick’s Day, Irish, buttermilk
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy.
Christine says
I’m late in posting, but I made the whole-wheat version for St. Patrick’s Day and my husband and I LOVED it. Absolutely delicious and so easy. Thank you!
★★★★★
alexandra says
Wonderful to hear this, Christine!
Diane says
Tried this last night – simple and absolutely delicious. Thank you.
★★★★★
alexandra says
Wonderful to hear this, Diane!
Jessica says
Hi Ali! Love all your recipes – found this site after seeing your peasant bread recipe and getting your book, and haven’t stopped reading/cooking/baking! Anyway, I tried this Irish soda bread yesterday and it wasn’t cooked through in the middle (it sounded hollow when I knocked on it) but stuck it back in the oven and ended up eating the parts that were cooked through. The taste was great, but wondering what I might have done wrong to begin with, any ideas? The only thing I could think was I didn’t score it deep enough (watched your video again and it looks like you do a pretty deep cut) – I’m going to try again today with a deeper score, hoping that fixes it, fingers crossed. Thanks again for sharing!
alexandra says
Hi Jessica! So nice to hear all of this. Thank you.
Regarding the bread, it sounds as though it maybe just needed some more time in the oven. Does your oven typically run cool? And do you use a scale to measure the flour? When you shaped it, were you able to shape it into a ball? I don’t think the scoring was an issue.
Let me know, and we can troubleshoot more!
Jessica says
Thank you so much for replying – I don’t use a scale (yet) though I am starting to think maybe that would make things easier overall. I think the ball shape might have been the main culprit, because I got it to work second time around, and felt like it was better shaped. So, it cooked through this time, but some of my baking soda must not have been evenly distributed or something because I had some small areas where it looked like it was slightly burnt. Overall it still tasted great, though it was a very dense/heavy bread, but that may be normal and exactly how soda bread is supposed to be. Thanks again for your help and your wonderful site!
alexandra says
Sure thing! Soda bread definitely is a dense/heavy bread. A scale will help ensure you are measuring the amount of flour accurately. You also can do this to test if your baking soda is fresh: Toss a spoonful of baking soda into a bowl. Add a splash of vinegar. If the mixture fizzes heavily, the baking soda is still good. If you don’t get much of a fizz, your baking soda has likely gone bad.
THank you for the kind words 💕
Susan says
This is the best version out there! I used 2 cups whole wheat flour and added grated orange rind plus raisins.
★★★★★
alexandra says
Yum! So nice to hear this, Susan 😍😍😍
Katrin says
Hi! I would love to make your bread – it looks so delicious!
How many mililiters are 1 3/4 cups of buttermilk approximately??
Thanks in advance! Kind regards Katrin
★★★★★
alexandra says
420 ml! 💕💕💕💕