Irish Soda Bread

Upon researching traditional Irish recipes for St. Patrick's Day, I came across the website www.sodabread.info that gave some very interesting facts:

"All recipes for traditional soda bread contain flour, baking soda, sour milk (buttermilk) and salt. That's it!!!

This was a daily bread that didn't keep long and had to be baked every few days. It was not a festive "cake" and did not contain whisky, candied fruit, caraway seeds, raisins (add raisins and it becomes "spotted dog" not to be confused with the pudding made with suet of the same name), or any other ingredient.

There are recipes for those types of cakes but they are not the traditional soda bread eaten by the Irish daily since the mid 19th century.

Here are a few basic recipe. Note that measurements below are in American standards. (An Irish teaspoon is not the same as an American teaspoon measurement.)

Note for New Bakers: a fluid cup contains 8 ounces of liquid. A dry ingredient cup contains around 4 ounces by weight. Don't use a liquid measuring cup for dry ingredients. Tsp means Teaspoon.

Of course our great grandmothers just grabbed a handful of this and a pinch of that to make their bread. We modern bakers need help since we don't do it every day."

Interesting isn't it? All this time I though soda bread was supposed to have raisins! Lets make some the old school way, shall we?

Ingredients:

4 cups (16 oz) of all purpose flour.
1 Teaspoon baking soda
1 Teaspoon salt
14 oz of buttermilk

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 425 F. degrees. Lightly grease and flour a cake pan.

In a large bowl sieve and combine all the dry ingredients.

Add the buttermilk to form a sticky dough. Place on floured surface and lightly knead (too much allows the gas to escape)

Shape into a round flat shape in a round cake pan and cut a cross in the top of the dough.

Cover the pan with another cake pan and bake for 30 minutes (this simulates the bastible pot). Remove cover and bake for an additional 15 minutes.

The bottom of the bread will have a hollow sound when tapped so show it is done.

Cover the bread in a tea towel and lightly sprinkle water on the cloth to keep the bread moist.