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One Badass Cookie, I mean, Irish Soda Bread - Happy St. Patrick’s Day
- by Nancy, March 15, 2009
One Badass Cookie is making a bread today in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. This comes from my mentor and fellow artist Eileen Neff, who visited friends in Ireland recently. She remembers the delicious smell and taste of this Irish Soda Bread comforting her as it baked in her friend, Susan Tiger’s wind-swept cottage during a storm so fierce the wind was forcing the rain that overflowed the roads to run uphill. A bread good enough to quell fear. That’s One Badass Bread. Since there’s a lot of controversy about Irish Soda Bread these days, I was thrilled to get this recipe, a community recipe from County Mayo that is the simple authentic type of soda bread and not the wonderful but sweet, butter-laden, raisin studded version we Americans mostly know. Such a find: fabulous homemade bread practically as good as the time-consuming yeast-risen kind in little more than an hour. Wow. For the recipe, the Badass baking tip of the week, the skinny on how buttermilk and baking soda make this bread rise like crazy and more photos, read on.
Badass Baking Tip of the Week: When measuring flour for bread or any recipe with flour, lift the flour into the cup instead of scooping it, be careful not to shake the cup, then level off the top with your fingers or a knife. This will prevent heavy, dry baked goods resulting from too much flour getting into the cup measure.
Susan Tiger’s Irish Soda Bread, County Mayo, Ireland
Makes one large round loaf
4 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups all-purpose white flour
1 1/2 t. salt
I heaping t. baking soda
2 cups buttermilk, or enough to make a sticky but not wet dough
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or with a nonstick pad.
2. Combine dry ingredients and mix to combine. Add buttermilk. Stir with a wooden spoon until the dough comes together. Add more buttermilk if needed to make a sticky dough that is not wet.
3. Form into a round loaf, place on the sheetpan and bake for 1 hour or until the bottom of the bread sounds hollow when tapped. Cool on a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Just another Sunday morning in the Badass Kitchen. I bought myself flowers today. St. Pat’s day always signals Spring to me.The buttermilk is important to this recipe by the way, as it produces a chemical reaction with the baking soda that makes the bread rise like crazy.
Here’s the dough all ready to go. This is an unsweetened bread like a wonderful whole wheat bread. If you are looking for sweet Irish Soda versions, this isn’t it, but if you appreciate a rustic homemade loaf with a crusty, caramelized crust and homey taste, this is your bread. For a sweeter version that is not far from the original, try the one from fellow bloggers Tea & Cookies.
Okay, can I just say, “Yum!”
If you have a Badass Baked Good recipe for Laura and Nancy, send it to us and we’ll test it. If it’s badass enough, we’ll post it as a reader’s recipe on Jellypress and you’ll win a prize of Nancy’s book, Walking On Walnuts.
see also: One Badass Cookie - Chocolate Chip Cookies
To find out about Laura's search for a long lost family recipe, click [