Whole Wheat Irish Soda Bread
"A friend of mine sent me this recipe. It is easy to make and very tasty and nutritious. I visit Ireland every couple of years, and this is much like what we enjoy for breakfast."
photo by fawn512
- Ready In:
- 50mins
- Ingredients:
- 7
- Yields:
-
1 loaf
- Serves:
- 10
ingredients
- 4 cups whole wheat flour
- 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1⁄2 teaspoon white sugar or 1/2 teaspoon brown sugar
- 1 cup skim milk
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
directions
- Mix milk and lemon.
- Combine dry ingredients.
- Add milk and lemon mixture (buttermilk may be used instead).
- On floured bread board (I use whole wheat) knead dough for no more than a minute.
- Shape dough into a circle with a height of about two inches.
- Place on lightly oiled baking sheet.
- With (sharp) floured knife, cut an x nearly halfway through the dough.
- Bake about 40 minutes in 400F degrees degree oven.
- Dough should sound hollow when tapped with knuckles or handle of spoon.
- Place loaf on wire rack and let rest at least an hour before slicing.
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Reviews
-
Actually, Irish soda bread is supposed to be much drier than a yeast bread. It is torn rather than cut, and is better for dipping into a soup or stew than for eating plain. Don't expect this to be like a sandwich bread or french-type bread, it can't be because of the very nature of how it is made. The tough crust and texture are much better suited for moistening with a liquid, and this is surprisingly good with a broth or an onion soup. -
These doesn't taste as good as yeasted whole wheat bread. I followed the advice the dough being dry, so i added 2 c of whole wheat and 1 c of flour isntead. The dough was still dry , so i added 1t of water and knd a fw times. The bread turned out hard, i put them in a plastic bag while hot, to maybe make them a bit soft -
I make this all the time and tend to just embellish with a few herbs such as rosemary or basil. The trick with the milk and lemon juice is to mix that about 10 minutes before as it curdles the milk slightly. This is what reacts with the baking soda to make the bread rise. If you're using Buttermilk (which is difficult to get hold of in the UK) you can use that straight away. And one final useless bit of info - marking the X on the top of the bread before putting it in the oven is supposed to "let the fairies out".
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I've never had Irish Soda Bread before so I didn't really know what to expect. I had to sub some of the all-purpose flour with more whole-wheat flour because I didn't have enough, and that probably made this rather doughy. I also needed to add a little water to be able to knead it because it was pretty dry. This tasted rather nice warm, but was really, really tough to slice, so we just ended up breaking off chunks of it with our hands!
