Irish Soda Bread

Some facts:
1.  Irish has a question particle (in the same way that Korean does) that actually marks a declarative sentence as a question when used.

2.  When i was an undergrad, i bought a "Irish I'm Kiss Me" shirt for St. Patty's Day for irony's sake, and more than one person came up to me and asked, "Oh my gosh, are you part Irish?"

3.  Lucky Charms is the scariest cereal on the planet. And yet.  I can recite the entire line of marshmallows that each box includes due to that incessant song on the commercial from the 90s.  "Hearts, stars, horseshoes..."

4.  I hate leprechauns.  Gnomes, dwarfs, and elves I can deal with, but not leprechauns.  But to get into that story, i would have to tell a much longer tale that has nothing to do with Irish Soda Bread.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooookay

Now that that is out of the way....hi.  Here's a recipe for an easy, oven-baked Irish Soda Bread.  I did make it with raisins, though if you want to be super traditional, you can leave it out.  

Ingredients (1 loaf):

-4 tbsp butter

-3 cups flour

-2 tbsp sugar

-1 tsp baking soda

-1 tsp baking powder

-1/2 tsp salt

-1/2 cup raisins

-3/4 cup buttermilk

1.  Put all dry ingredients in a bowl. 

Cut the butter into the dry mix using two knives until it's well incorporated.

It should look something like this at the end.

2.  Add raisins!  Instead of boring normal raisins, I splurged a little bit and got these jumbo red ones instead.

Yum.

These are juicier and sweeter in a less raisiny kind of way, and resemble grapes more.  Wow, do i have a way with words.

3.  Enter the only wet ingredient you really need.

Slowly add the buttermilk.  Use a mixing spoon to incorporate the thick buttermilk into the dry mix. 

Once you get to a point where you can knead the dough (not too dry, not too sticky), stop adding the buttermilk.  You may end up using a little more than 3/4 cup...I didn't measure :)

4.  Knead the dough lightly on a floured surface for a minute or two, then shape into a round loaf. 

Cut an X in the center.  Make the incision nice and deep...it'll allow the loaf to kinda flower up.

5.  Bake at 375F for 40 minutes.

Here's the end-product!

Mmm, so hot, crusty, and delicious!

Let's cut into this baby.

Oh yes.

It's not a delicate bread like French loaves.  This is good old hearty, simple, no-fuss bread with none of that yeast business that requires poofy proofing. 

The loaf is fantastic hot, but it tastes just as good cold, in my opinion.  It's super easy to make and requires ingredients you probably have on hand (except a little container of buttermilk, which you can pick up at the store real quick). 

Have a great St. Patrick's Day!

For a printable version of this recipe, please click here.