Irish (American) Soda Bread

With one week to go until St Patrick's Day, Irish soda bread is beginning to appear in bakeries and even grocery stores across the US.  It's a slightly sweet quick bread, made with raisins, dried currants, and sometimes caraway seeds, and is absolutely delicious buttered.  It's a St Patrick's Day treat that I look forward to every year.

But like many American St Patrick's Day traditions, this bread actually originated on this side of the Atlantic.  It probably evolved from the simple soda breads made in Ireland; it's essentially a basic white soda bread with sugar and dried fruit added.  These additions, as well as the use of more finely milled white flour made it a more expensive loaf than the brown soda bread it evolved from, an indulgence made possible by the increasing prosperity of Irish Americans in the late 19th century.

If you're looking for a nice sweet bread to smear with butter for your St Patrick's Day breakfast, look no further.  If, however, you're after a traditional addition to your supper, or a more savory slice of toast, you may want to try brown soda bread or traditional white soda bread.  All are delicious, so it's really just a matter of preference.

Ingredients:

• 2- 3 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 cup buttermilk

• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda 

•  1 large egg 

•  2 tbs sugar 

•  1/3 cups dried currants or rasins

• pinch of salt 

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 and sprinkle a cookie sheet with flour. Combine dry ingredients except fruit in a medium mixing bowl. Beat together egg and buttermilk until combined.  Add buttermilk mixture to dry ingredients a little at a time, mixing with a wooden spoon after each addition. Add  more flour as needed.  When the mixture forms a crumbly dough, fold in fruit, and form into a ball. Place the dough on the prepared cookie sheet and cut a deep cross in the top (at least half way through the dough).  Bake in the preheated oven 30-35 minutes, or until the outside is golden brown, the loaf has at least doubled in size, and the bread makes a hollow sound when tapped on the bottom. Allow to cool for a few minutes before serving.

To make this American version of soda bread, I just took my basic white soda bread recipe and added some sugar, an egg, and a little fruit.  The egg and sugar completely transform the bread; this is a much softer loaf.  It's still extremely quick and easy to make, which it the whole point of using baking soda rather than yeast, and means you can easily bake a loaf while you're preparing the rest of your St Patrick's Day brunch.  This is excellent news, as this bread really is best still a little warm from the oven.  If you don't want to get up early enough to bake, though, it will keep overnight.