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Brown Irish soda bread

Brown Irish soda bread

A tin loaf for an ordinary morning
Author:
Austin Welsh-Graham
Categories: The Toasty Book of Bread Leavening Cooking Method Collection Bread Form Regional Route Main Material
Tags: Chemical leavening Oven-baked The Toasty Book of Bread Tin loaf Western and Mediterranean Europe Wheat
Ingredients
250 g Wholemeal wheat flour200 g Plain white wheat flour1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda (Sieved.)1 tsp Fine salt1 piece Egg350 ml Buttermilk1 tsp Honey (Optional.)1 tbsp Oats (Optional.)
Description

A bread mixed after breakfast can be ready for lunch. Soda bread fits a morning without asking for a refreshed culture or an evening preferment. Its speed belongs to a particular relationship between ingredients and heat, and it leaves the cook free to arrange the rest of the meal around it.

A brown soda loaf baked in a tin, with a short mixing method and no fermented rise. Makes 1 loaf.

Recipe
Preparation
1
Preheat to 200 °C. Grease the loaf tin.
2
Combine both flours, soda and salt. Beat egg with buttermilk and optional honey.
Mixing and kneading
1
Mix wet into dry just until evenly combined. Do not knead. Add a small splash of buttermilk only if needed to bring the flour together.
Cooking
1
Transfer to the tin, level gently and scatter optional oats. Bake 45-50 minutes until well coloured and the turned-out loaf sounds hollow underneath. Return briefly to the oven if the base is soft.
Cooling and serving
1
Cool on a rack. Wrap in a clean tea towel while cooling if you prefer a softer crust.
Notes

About 1 hour, plus cooling. 10 minutes hands-on. A greased 900 g / 2 lb loaf tin, bowl and jug. Contains milk and egg.

Two small things that matter

Sieve the soda so it does not leave bitter little pockets. Measure it level: more soda is not a shortcut to a taller loaf. Have the tin and oven ready before mixing, then take the dough straight to the oven.

A loaf, not a cake

Honey and oats are optional here. Leave them out for a plainer first bake, or include them and compare. Buttermilk is part of the leavening system, so replacing it with ordinary milk is not a like-for-like swap. The useful first experiment is to learn this dough as written. Flour substitutions can follow after you have a reference loaf.