Irish Soda Bread

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, we usually cook corned beef, cabbage, potatoes and my favorite:  Irish Soda Bread.

I enjoy eating the Irish Soda Bread with a thick slathering of salted butter.  I use to serve it with Irish cultured butter like Kerrygold.  In our town we are able to get fresh dairy delivery weekly, which includes butter.  Now I use Calder Dairy salted butter.

I rarely use graham flour and right before St. Patty’s Day, I buy a package of it and get excited that I’m going to make the Irish soda bread.  This is a simple recipe—no embellishments.  We are NOT Irish, I didn’t grow up eating special Irish meals so I don’t know how authentic this is but I find it tasty.

            3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

            1 cup whole-wheat graham flour

            1 tablespoon coarse salt

            1 teaspoon baking soda

            1 teaspoon baking powder

            4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

            1 2/3 cups buttermilk

Mix all dry ingredients together and cut the butter into the flour mixture.  I start off with a pastry cutter and then I move to smashing the pieces into small bits.  Add the buttermilk all at once and combine.  The dough is sticky in certain sections and dry and crumbly in other parts.  Do the best job incorporating it all together.  Make a dome / round loaf shape and place on baking sheet. 

Cut a deep “X” on the top of the dome.  Bake at 350-degrees F for 80-mins.

I did two loaves instead of one because the mixture wouldn’t stick together.  I baked it for 50-minutes.

It’s hard to stop from just picking the crust off and eating that…but we don’t want to just take all the best parts for ourselves., especially since we were having guests to enjoy beer and dinner with us.