Irish Soda Bread that Doesn’t Taste Bitter or Metallic

I have had bad tasting soda or quick breads. Too much baking soda, cheap wheat flour and a heavy hand at mixing. It’s lead to bitter, metallic, dense and claggy loaves of blobs. I’m not sure why there are so many bad recipes out there for what is basically a giant biscuit. After all, learning how to make Irish soda bread is very easy to do.

For those that have followed along from the beginning, I really don’t care for soda bread. Or so I thought. One day, I started thinking about how soda bread is basically a giant biscuit. And I love biscuits as any good country girl should. So why didn’t I like soda bread when I tried it before?

Seriously, soda bread is a quick bread and so are biscuits. Both are made with very similar ingredients and in a similar fashion. The difference is one is huge and the others are portable. So why did I find it so unpleasing and how can I improve the taste of Irish soda bread?

Simple. I went back and read the ingredients. Minus the egg, the ingredients are the same, just different amounts. I decided to try again, but this time, use a little more butter and bake it like a giant biscuit. Popping it in the oven, I waited a bit impatiently. And I was more impatient waiting for it to cool enough to eat. But when we finally took a bite, oh yum! Success! Irish soda bread is now welcome in our home.

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Irish Soda Bread

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Soda bread made without extra ingredients and tastes just like a giant biscuit!

Prepare: 10 minutes mins

Bake: 45 minutes mins

Servings: 12

Ingredients

• 2 cups (300g) flour
• 1 ⅓ cups (320mL) buttermilk
• 1 cup (150g) whole wheat flour
• ¼ cup (56g) cold butter
• 1 large (50g) egg
• 1 tsp (6g) baking soda
• ½ tsp (2.5g) salt

Instructions

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• Preheat oven to 400F (200C.)
• In a large bowl, mix flour, baking soda and salt together.
• Cut butter into small pieces. With your fingers, rub the butter into the flour until it resembles fine bread crumbs. Make a well in the center.
• Whisk the buttermilk and egg together. Pour into the center of the flour mixture and stir until a dough is just formed.
• Pat out into a circle about 8" inches (20cm) in diameter. With a sharp knife, cut a t shape on top of the bread about 1/4" (6mm) deep.
• If desired, brush top with buttermilk and sprinkle with caraway seeds, oats or nuts.
• Place on a floured cookie sheet, parchment paper or use a non-stick surface.
• Bake 40 – 45 minutes until golden brown on top. Center of bread should read between 200F (93C) to 212F (100C.)
• Cool on wire rack before slicing.

Notes

If you don’t have buttermilk, add 1 tbs of lemon juice or vinegar in the bottom of a measuring cup and fill up to the 1 1/3 cup (320mL) with regular milk.  Wait 10 minutes before adding to the recipe.  The milk will look curdled.  This is normal.  

You can substitute the baking soda for 1 tbs (12g) baking powder.