Irish Soda Bread

Irish Soda Bread

Because I am Irish myself I suppose I’m a bit partial to soda bread. In
Ireland
its sold all over the country in wonderful hand formed loaves, which are a
tender combination of wheat, oats, sweet butter, a touch of sugar and buttermilk.
The following recipe comes from the small town of Schull where my parents have
lived for almost forty years now and when I come home it’s the first thing I
eat. Soda bread is not unlike a much larger and somewhat denser biscuit. The
key to this bread is not to overwork the dough so as to keep the loaf nice and
tender when it’s finished.

Ingredients

Whole wheat flour                              1 cup

All purpose flour                              2 cups

Sea salt                                       ½
teaspoon

Baking Soda                                    1
teaspoon

Cream of tartar                                ½ teaspoon

Granulated sugar                               ¼ cup (I use
vanilla sugar)

Unsalted butter                                4 tablespoon,
cold

Buttermilk                                     2 cups

Method

Preheat the oven to
400. Grease a 9-inch loaf pan.

In a large stainless
steel bowl mix all of the dry ingredients together. When this is done work in
the butter with your hands or a pastry cutter until all of the butter pieces
are well incorporated and about pea size.

Next add the
buttermilk and gently mix until all ingredients are just incorporated and then
knead the dough until it forms into a well formed round loaf size.

With a knife make a
cross along the top of the loaf, place in prepared loaf pan and bake until
golden brown for about 40 minutes.