While soda bread is traditionally used for St. Patrick’s Day, I think this amazing quick and easy bread can be used any time of the year! It is packed with zesty orange flavor and a hint of tartness from the currants added to this freshly homemade bread!
What is soda bread?
According to Google, “Soda bread is a variety of quick bread in which sodium bicarbonate AKA baking soda is used as a leavening agent instead of traditional yeast.” It is made much faster and with no waiting time for fermentation which is what happens when you use yeast in any bread recipe.
Soda bread is very popular in my home, along with any other breads I make.
Funny story, when I met my husband many years ago when I was a young lassie, his very first job was working as a baker baking bread for his hometown in Portugal. Let me just say when you live next to a bakery, and they make fresh bread daily all wee hours in the morning there is no smell like the one of fresh baked bread! YUMMMMMMM!! 😉 I never made bread in all the years of my life, until Covid started. Being on lockdown pretty much gave me the opportunity to explore the bread-making world. Up until then, my hubby was the one who loved making bread for us! He is a kneading machine! Not gonna lie, watching my man knead bread is pretty hot! 😉
I had dived in and made homemade bread every week and my hubby was impressed! I took it as a compliment being that he’s the professional breadmaker! LOL!
Stay tuned for my bread recipes! Coming soon!
Let me also mention that bread is a huge staple in our Portuguese culture. There is always bread served with every meal! My father cannot eat a meal if there is no bread on the table. And if we forget he has no problem reminding us! LOL!
This Irish Soda Bread recipe is NOT my recipe! Ina Garten created this recipe and I have used it for years and it is my favorite. Here is Ina Garten’s original recipe Barefoot Contessa | Irish Soda Bread | Recipeshttps://barefootcontessa.com/recipes/irish-soda-bread
Irish soda bread can be made with raisins or currants, and if you’re feeling really daring, then add them both. Typically, raisins are larger, and sweeter than currants and come from a variety of grapes. Currants are sweet and tangy added with a touch of berry flavor and are much smaller. Currants are bush-grown berries unlike raisins, which are dried grapes, grown on a vine. Currants, sometimes are harder to find. Not every grocery store carries them. It took me a couple of trips to a few different grocery stores to finally find currants.
I was on a mission and not giving up! 😉
If you can’t find currants, then replacing them with golden or regular raisins will be just as good!
This recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of grated orange, but I like to use a whole orange. We could all use a little more zest in our lives, right? 😉
This bread is super easy to make. I have a Kitchen-Aid mixer. If you don’t have one, you could use an electric hand mixer or a wooden spoon, but if you really want to be daring and go old school, then use your hands and have fun in this gooey bowl of goodness!
Mix all dry ingredients in one bowl and set aside for a few minutes. In another bowl, combine all wet ingredients and mix slowly. Can you guess what happens next? Yep, wet ingredients get dumped ever so carefully into the dry ingredients. They marry each other and live in eternal bliss covered in zesty orange and tangy currants.
Quick side note about buttermilk…
I don’t always buy buttermilk. Not because I don’t like it, but because I don’t always use the whole carton and it ends up going bad. Most baking recipes call for 1-2 cups of buttermilk so buying a whole carton, unless you double the recipe, can be a waste if you’re not going to use the rest of it right away. So, here are a few things you can do to substitute for buttermilk…
1 cup of milk + 1 tbsp of white vinegar
1 cup of milk + 1 tbsp of lemon juice
1 cup of plain yogurt
1 cup of milk + 1 ¾ tsp of Cream of tarter
I feel like vinegar and maybe even lemons are a staple that many of us already have in our pantries so why spend more when you could just use what you already have? Whole milk or 2% milk works well for these substitutions.
Currants
This recipe also calls for adding flour to the currants before adding it to the recipe. This helps the currants from sticking to each other and in the dough, so you get a nice even layer of currants when slicing the finished product.
Dough
The dough is very wet and super sticky when done mixing. Add a good heaping 1/2 cup of flour onto a flat surface or a wooden board and knead the dough onto the flour until it no longer sticks to the flat surface you’re using. Round it up and place it on a sheet pan with parchment paper. Cut an X onto the dough and bake in the oven.
Make sure to use a toothpick to check the middle of the bread when the time is up to see if it is baked all the way through. Ovens may vary in temperature and baking speed. If it doesn’t come out clean, let it bake for an additional 10 minutes or until your tester comes out clean with no gooiness.
Serve warm with butter or jam or eat at room temperature. This bread is also great to freeze and awesome in the toaster.
Have fun with this recipe. Feel free to share what you have done in the comments below or share a picture of you enjoying this delicious bread!
Bom apetite! Enjoy this delicious bread!
Homemade Irish Soda Bread
Equipment
- 1 sheet pan
- 1 sheet of parchment paper
- 1 electric hand mixer or Kitchen Aid Mixer
- 1 zester
Ingredients
- 4 cups all purpose flour plus extra for currants
- 4 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 ½ tsp kosher salt
- 4 tbsp cold unsalted butter cut into ½ inch cubes
- 1 ¾ cup cold buttermilk shaken
- 1 extra-large egg lightly beaten
- 1 tsp grated orange zest
- 1 cup dried currants
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375℉.
- Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
- Combine flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Whisk together.
- Add the butter mix on low speed until butter is mixed into flour.
- In a separate bowl, or large measuring cup, lightly beat the buttermilk, egg and orange zest together.
- With mixer on low speed slowly add the buttermilk mixture into the flour mixture.
- Combine the currants with 1 tbsp of flour and mix into dough.
- Dump the dough onto a well floured surface or board and knead a few times until the dough doesn’t stick to your surface any longer.
- Knead it into a rounded loaf.
- Place rounded loaf onto the prepared sheet pan and lightly cut an X into the top of the loaf with a serrated knife.
- Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean.
- Cool on the baking rack.
- Serve warm or at room temperature.
- Bom appetite! Enjoy your bread!
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