Brown Soda Bread-An Irish Woman's Chocolate

As part of my third timester nesting activities I find myself drawn to cooking and baking. I have been cooking up large batches of our staple family meals and freezing them, paying attention to how to carry out this task the most efficiently so that when our little boy arrives I can continue this practice and cut down time spent at the cooker versus time spent leisurely enjoying our growing family. I have also created a new binder for Food Preparation, organized my recipes within categories, and created categories for Pantry Inventory, and Herbs, Spices and Condiment Inventory. I am also working on a comprehensive shopping list. As I said I'm nesting! As part of organizing my recipes I have finally, and ruthlessly, culled all those recipes that I have been holding onto for years but have not, and realistically never will, do anything with. Any recipe that survived the culling, has been given a short reprieve with the intention to use it within the year or send it on its merry way next January. My binder is a thing of beauty and I find myself browsing through it to see what I can make next for my family, but really it's all for me.

Looking though the binder at the weekend, I found myself being drawn over and over to the Irish soda bread recipes I have collected. There was no doubt in my hungry for comfort food brain that I wanted to make a loaf. The decision was simply between white or brown soda bread. Both are favorites of mine and in the end I chose the brown. I'm sure the white soda bread will grace our kitchen before too many more days pass. I'll post an entry with photos and recipe after I enjoy every crumb, well maybe not every crumb. I am not a family of one!

From Favorite Food

Irish Brown Bread (with Irish Tea Brack and Dublin Stew)

My recipe for Irish Brown Soda Bread was given to me from my friend Linda, to whom I will be eternally grateful. The recipe is from the Royal Hibernian Hotel in Dublin as published in Bernard Clayton’s New Complete Book of Breads.

Ingredients
2 ½ cups whole-wheat flour, preferably stone-ground
1 cup all-purpose flour, approximately
2 Tbsp sugar
1 ½ tsps baking soda
1 tsp salt
¼ cup ( ½ stick) butter, room temperature
1 egg
1 ¼ cups buttermilk (or 5 Tbsp buttermilk powder plus 1 ¼ cups water), room temperature (note: I prefer to use 1 ¼ cups of milk with 1 Tbsp of distilled white vinegar allowed to sit for about 5mins)

1 greased baking sheet

Preheat oven to 400F about 20mins before baking.

In a bowl mix together all the dry ingredients.

With your fingers work in the butter until it is absorbed by the flour, and the mixture resembles tiny, soft breadcrumbs.

Make a well in the center of the mixture. In a separate bowl lightly beat the egg and stir in the milk.

Gradually pour the egg-milk mixture into the well, mixing first with a spoon and then by hand when it forms a stiff dough.

Lift the dough from the bowl and place on a lightly floured work surface. Work the dough with your hands (and a dough knife if you like to do that, I don’t) to thoroughly blend all of the ingredients.

DO NOT KNEAD. The butter in the dough will make it easy to work with. Sprinkle with flour if it is sticky to handle.

Shape into a plump round ball. Pat down the top slightly, and with a knife or razor blade cut a ½” deep cross on the top.

Place the loaf on the baking sheet, and bake until it has browned and has opened dramatically along the cuts, about 35-45mins. (If using a convection oven, reduce heat by 40 degrees.)

Remove the bread from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool before cutting.

Although this bread can be frozen, it is better freshly baked. Delicious warm with butter and strawberry jam. I also like it with butter and marmalade for breakfast. If it has been around a few days (and this may never happen) it tastes great toasted and eaten with butter and jam.