I love, love, love Guittard chocolate for baking, especially their semi-sweet. If ya wanna get all fancy order their semi sweet, milk and bittersweet and experiment with mixing them. Sooo good! It is slightly less expensive than SB ($12 per lb) and the flavor in my opinion is superior.
The key to good Irish soda bread in my opinion is the use of buttermilk. Think: Cheddar Bay biscuits from Red Lobster meets a scone.
If that fails pick some up at a New Seasons if you have one nearby. Their recipe is moist and delicious!
Ree, you absolutely make my day! i enjoy your blogs, and love your recipes; i will have to send you my "best cake brownies" recipe...they have an entire can of 16 oz hershey's chocolate syrup in them....mmmmm.
one of the things i love most about you...your love for that marlboro man and your kiddos...so refreshing!
EuropeanCuisineGuy says, "Leaving out the raisins --" (which he doesn't care for -- ) he is entirely in favor of the latter recipe. (And adds, "Wow, would that go with goulash!") Caraway is a commonplace, being one of the herbs that grows well here: I forget which writer it was who said, about potato cakes baked in a Bastable oven, "They came out hot and hot from the oven, full of caraway and soaked with butter, and we ate them greedily..." Whiskey was also mentioned. :)
An interesting side to all this is the debate that could be indulged in as to whether a recipe should be used for its authenticity or for its deliciousness - as sometimes things with the same name can be more or less authentic and more or less delicious, too. Historic authenticity can be the only taste one might want (if one knows it and remembers it) but adaptation and improvement might be to other's tastes who do not have memory imprinted upon them.
Yes, yet another dry commentary. Oh well.
There is an excellent recipe for Irish Soda Bread (made in an inn in Cork) that includes yogurt, golden raisins, and caraway seeds - plus eggs and a bit of butter and sugar - in Sheila Lukin's Around the World Cookbook. Best one I've ever had.
Can I suggest our soda bread article and master recipe (with variations) here?
Peter's Mum's soda bread recipe
P's mum made soda bread on site in Ireland from the mid-1920's until she died last year at the age of 90. She passed me her basic recipe and (much more importantly) her method, which works brilliantly. At her instigation I added video tutorials a while back.
The secret for getting it right seems to be mostly speed. Also good ingredients, and (agreeing with others above) buttermilk rather than plain milk. Also, yes, the "plain soda" version of the bread is supposed to be a bit on the dry side. It's not meant to be a keeping bread, but something you make fresh every day. For a moister product, you do need to begin tinkering with the more authentic approach, or adding fruit, sugar, cream, etc, as in some of the tea breads mentioned further down in the article.
(The article, BTW, also has directions for soda farl, which is the less well-known version of soda bread -- a little more northern, but much loved, especially as part of the Ulster fry.)
Also: Just this morning I experimented (can't believe it's taken so long) with the same recipe using the NY Times-style no-knead, hot-pot method. It works absolutely perfectly (but then the cake style of soda bread baked "in the pot" or Bastable oven is the stuff of many childhood memories here).
Hi, real live Irish person here in Dublin this morning on Paddy's Day! My advice on soda bread is that the authentic route is best, otherwise probably best to make another type. The really straight up recipe for white soda bread is probably the one available on the Odlums (irish flour company) website, here it is: http://www.odlums.ie/Recipes/R_WhSodaBr.html For reference, odlums cream flour is white normal flour (think you call it cake flour), not bread flour (extra gluten unnecessary as not kneaded - ha, one reading of that is a terrible pun, I mean the literal one). Contrary to BaHa's opinion, that is the flour that's used in Ireland anyway. Couple of bugbears, there should be minimal fat, definitely no eggs and you've got to use bread soda - that's why it's called soda bread, people!
I will have to try some of these recipes. I love Soda Bread and I cannot find "my" recipe - which is one I cut out of "Woman's World" magazine back in the 80's. I am heartbroken.
I do have my grandmother's yeast Irish Bread recipe which I adore, though.
I was hard pressed for the better part of my 18 year marriage to find a recipe my husband liked. I finally was given one last year by a born and bred Irish woman from my kids school. It wasn't his grandmothers's, but
my man said it was the 2nd best he'd ever had.
3 Cups flour
1 Cup sugar
1 tspn salt
3 tspns baking powder
3 eggs
1.5 cups milk
1 cup raisins
Mix flour, salt and baking powder. In seperate bowl,mix sugar, eggs and
milk. Add wet to dry. Lastly add raisins.
Bake @ 400 for 20 min, then reduce the temp. to 375 for 40 min. Total baking time is about 1 hour depending on your oven.
As with all hot bread, best served with "just a touch of butter"
.
Both the recipe & methodology is important in making a good, moist loaf of classic soda bread.
My basic Soda Bread (& Scone) dough is as follows:
4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
1 cup buttermilk
cube butter into 1/2 inch squares & keep cold.
Mix dry ingredients.
To me the key to making soda bread that isn't "dry" is to use real butter. Rub the butter into the dry ingredients by coating each cube and rubbing it between you finger & thumb. When all the butter is incorporated into the dry ingredients, there should be small butter clumps each the size of a pea.
Make a well in the center of this & add the buttermilk.
Quickly & lightly knead the flour into the buttermilk until it forms a dough. It will be quite sticky. Do not overknead!...the dough should be sticky. Form a round, pat it down to about 3-4" thick, and place on a buttered baking sheet or round pan.
Cut a 1/2 inch deep cross into the dough to create steam vents.
Bake in a 425 preheated oven for 45 minutes or until browned.
I like to add dill as an additional dry ingredient. You can also make a sweeter bread by adding a 1/2 cup sugar & dried fruit (cranberries & cherries are good) with a bit of lemon or orange zest to the flour mixture. Use 1/4-12 cup more buttermilk.
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