irish soda bread

this any time of the day bread is one of the fastest & easiest you will ever make. follow my instructions below and you will, i hope, be rewarded with a gorgeous light lemony yellow coloured fully-bloomed loaf.

interestingly, this bread is a recent "invention" of the mid 1800's in ireland where the introduction of baking soda replaced yeast in certain applications such as the now famous "irish soda bread". sorry to disappoint; no memories of, or links to, stonehenge here with this one! it can be made with either buttermilk or soured milk. i imagine a nondairy version can be made with soured soy milk; i haven't as yet tried it.

the bread is adorned with an X and is said to be the sign of the cross and put there to ward off any evil — obviously, a very catholic belief. in actuality, the scoring of the precooked loaf helps with the bloom of the bread when it experiences its oven spring and to designate individual portions.

It shocks some people to learn that Irish Soda Bread hasn't been around for thousands of years. It wasn't until around the 1840's that bicarbonate of soda (Bread soda) as a leavening agent was introduced to Ireland. The basic soda bread is made with flour, baking soda, salt, and soured milk (or buttermilk).

quote from the bookguy.com

it is also said that traditionally irish [soda] bread was not "baked" in an oven but rather in a pot, known as a bastable, which was placed over the fire in the hearth.

photo & an interesting article: european cuisines

from ballina-mayo ireland:

The three-legged iron pot is the origin of the term to make "Pot luck" In country districts it is used for roasting, stewing and for making cakes and bread. In Counties Limerick and Cork it is also called a Bastable oven, and the bread made in it a "Bastable Cake". Glowing turf (peat) sods are put on top when baking or roasting is being done to ensure even heat. The pot can be raised or lowered by a chain, and three short feet enable it to stand at the side of the hearth.

according to the article about soda bread by darina allen of the irish kitchen of irish recipes from abroad,

The word bastible seems to be a bastardization of the name Barnstaple, the town in Devon where these iron baking pots were made.

i bake mine, as i bake many of my breads, in a clay cooker known as la cloche, (the bell). it heats up first in the oven at a high temperature and then the bread is put inside and the lid replaced. this helps maintain a superhigh heat and the moisture needed to produce a decent loaf. one may try to reproduce this with a le creuset type pot in the hot oven. make sure the pot and lid go in the oven first to ensure they are sufficiently hot when the bread is added. take extreme care when placing the loaf in the pot and the oven.

this, of course, does not mean you can't bake yours conventionally on a baking sheet without one of these implements. the results will be similar and just as good.

to read more about this bread, look at the irish soda bread page. it will tell you the real facts about this irish bread!

you can also find an interesting article about this bread by ita artt. as she says, a bread best enjoyed warm slathered in butter and jam with a nice hot cup of tea! i say, don't forget either the devon double or clotted cream!! might as well go for 48 - 55% butterfat of these wonderful creams. if you don't finish it the day it is made, the bread will last well-wrapped for a day or two.

today you can even buy everything premixed, just add your liquid and bake!

photo: mrs.bridges british bakery

remember this is a quick bread — it will not have the same chewy developed gluten structure as you would have with a baguette or country loaf. it has more of a muffin-y structure.

irish soda bread

makes one smallish loaf

ingredients:

3 c AP flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt

1 1/4 c + 2 tbsp buttermilk

method:

preheat oven to 375 F.

place dry ingredients in a large bowl.

make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the buttermilk.

mix gently until you get a shaggy mess and most of it is incorporated. don't worry about the extra that hasn't mixed yet.

in the bowl, use your hands to make a more or less rough ball that has incorporated all the ingredients. note that with this bread, you are not to work it like you would a regular bread and that the finished look after the 2 minutes "kneading" will not result in a completely smooth ball. do not over work this dough for best results.

place the ball on the countertop on a cutting board. with your hands, flatten the ball slightly and make an X or a star[burst] shape about a 1/2 inch deep. let the dough rest for 10 minutes.

sift some flour over the top of the bread and place the dough in the hot oven. bake the bread for 40 minutes.

after 40 minutes you will get a gorgeous loaf. let it cool a bit and then dig in!

read more about the evolution of cauldrons and the development of cast iron for domestic use here. there are fascinating pictures of early celtic pots — prototypes, i imagine, of the later ones used to bake an irish soda bread in the mid 1800s.