Irish Soda Bread: Simple and Good
Also Called Cake Bread, This Easy Recipe Bakes In Under An Hour
Irish cooks know that there's one easy, tasty loaf that can be produced at the last minute to accompany any meal, from cheese and a salad to a six-course feast.
Irish soda bread, a quick bread meant to be made daily for the evening meal, used to be baked in an iron bastible, an iron cooking pot that could be hung over an open turf fire. Blocks of turf were banked below, and bits of burning turf were placed atop the lid to create even oven-like heat. While soda bread itself is all Irish, it is probable that the traditional cooking vessel is British. Darina Allen, in her book, Irish Country Cooking, notes, “The word bastible seems to be a bastardization of the name Barnstaple, the town in Devon where these iron baking pots were made.”
A Bona Fide Bread Without Yeast
Wherever the pot came from, the bread itself is manna to those who have developed a taste for the cake-like and filling bread, made not with yeast but with baking soda, hence the name.
Indeed, most soda bread recipes are so simple, even those who have Fear of Breadmaking can cope, and turn out very presentable loaves.
Secret Ingredient: Buttermilk
The secret to making good soda break easily is buttermilk. While it can be made with whole milk, the acidity in the buttermilk seems to hasten the process of blending the ingredients, a desirable thing since, in traditional recipes like Allen’s, the blending is done with the bare hand.
One can find other recipes for soda bread on the Internet, but those that arise most frequently are not for traditional soda bread. Rather,many are the variation known as Barmbrack, filled with raisins and added sugars. While Barmbrack is very pleasant, it is a meal in itself—tea or breakfast perhaps—and not an accompaniment, like traditional soda bread.
Other non-traditional recipes call only for added butter, for richness. One truly non-traditional recipe calls for margarine and butter. Ireland is now, and has always been, a dairy nation. They had no margarine when soda bread was invented; it is not, in Ireland, a popular fat now.
If you tamper with Allen’s traditional ingredients and instructions, be aware that you may not be making real Irish soda bread. Darina Allen is the daughter-in-law of Myrtle Allen, the first cook to take Irish cuisine international, with a world-class cooking school in Ballymaloe, Ireland, near Cork City, and a restaurant in Paris, now closed.
Truly Hand-Made Bread
To make Darina Allen's traditional recipe, you will need:
- 4 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon salt,
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 1/2 to 1/34 cups buttermilk
Sift together the dry ingredients. Then, make a well in the center and pour in most of the milk at once. Using one hand, stir to mix in the flour form the sides of the bowl, adding more buttermilk if necessary.” When a soft dough forms, turn the dough out of the bowl and knead gently for a few minutes.
Then, shape it into a round, flat loaf about two inches thick.
Finally, use a large knife to cut a cross over the entire top of the loaf, wrapping around the sides slightly. (The traditional lore says this is to let the fairies out. In fact, it’s to assist in the rising.)
Then, bake the bread at 450 degrees F. for fifteen minutes, and for another 20 to 30 minutes at 400. Rap the bottom of the loaf with your knuckles when the ridges of the cross are slightly brown; if it sounds hollow, it is done.
