Delectable Irish Soda Bread
Ready to GF and Veganize your St. Patricks Day? How about Irish Soda Bread.
Warm, slightly sweet, and slathered in jam and butter. Irish Soda Bread, how I love thee.
Gluten-free bread is expensive and it goes bad so quickly. How many times have you bought a loaf, only to lose it to mold before it is half eaten? Or before you got it home from the store? Sure, you can leave it in the freezer, but that precludes sandwiches on demand and it is easily forgotten in the bowels of the freezer. Not to mention the fridge dries out bread badly.
You can make your own bread, of course, but yeast bread is a project. Its hours of hard work, often with heavy-duty appliances, like a Kitchenaid, many would-be bakers are deterred by its requirements. Still, nothing beats fresh, homemade bread.
Irish Soda Bread is a quick bread, and aptly named. It uses chemical leaveners instead of yeast, and is an easy and reliable bread. This recipe calls for both baking powder and baking soda and came together beautifully, providing me with two loaves of gluten-free temptation.
Delectable Irish Soda Bread
Ingredients
- 4 to 4 1/2 480-540g C GF Flour (Maninis Ancient Grains)
- 1 TSP Salt
- 1 TBSP Baking Powder
- 1 TSP Baking Soda
- 1/4 C Sugar optional
- 1/8 TSP Ground Cardamom or Coriander optional
- 1/4 C Firm Butter
- 1 Flax Egg see below
- 1 3/4 C Buttermilk see below
Instructions
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Pre-heat oven to 375º (350º for glass pan). Make buttermilk and flax egg (see below).
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In a large bowl, sift 4 cups (480g) flour, add salt, baking powder, and baking soda (add sugar and spice, if desired) and stir to thoroughly blend. Cut in butter with a pastry blender until crumbly.
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In a separate bowl, add egg to buttermilk and stir; stir with a fork into dry ingredients until blended. Turn out onto a floured board and knead until smooth (2 to 3 minutes.)
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Divide dough in half and shape each into a smooth, round loaf; place each in a greased cake or pie pan and press to slightly flatten. Using a floured knife or kitchen shears, cut a cross into each loaf.
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Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until nicely browned.
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Devour.
Recipe Notes
Homemade Buttermilk:
To make buttermilk from any milk substitute, pour 1 TBSP of apple cider vinegar into a liquid measuring cup, then add enough milk to equal a cup. Stir, and allow it to sit for 3 minutes, then stir again. It should be thickened and a little curdled looking. For this recipe, round up to 2 TBSP and add milk to equal 1 3/4 C liquid.
Flax Egg:
1 TBSP ground flax mixed with 3 tablespoons of water; allow to sit 3 minutes. If not thick, add a little more flax. If grinding your own flax, 4 grams whole flax will equal 1 TBSP ground.
One note about pre-ground flax. Flax goes rancid quickly, and the pre-ground options are stripped of all their nutrition. If it has a strong smell, it's gone bad. Throw it away! We suggest getting whole flax and keeping it in your fridge or freezer. You can grind it quickly with a inexpensive coffee grinder.
Marianne's Butter Trick:
When cutting butter into a batter or dough, I like to use frozen butter and grate it in with a cheese grater, then use a pastry cutter to fully incorporate.
Note:
When I made this recipe, my dough was too sticky to knead and I had to add more flour than the recipe specified. This is okay. Before you knead, ask yourself if you can pick it up with floured hands and not have it stick badly. If it is too sticky, add more flour and stir until you can hold it, then knead. When done, it should resemble playdough.
Adapted from Sunset Breads, 1984
I did notice that I had to use more flour than the original recipe called for, but that could be due to ambient humidity, differences between Maninis and All-Purpose Flour, or a host of other differences. Fortunately, bread is easy. Loaf too wet? Add flour, and fear not. I have never added too much flour to any bread, and all recipes give a range of flour needed because of the variable factors.
When I pulled these loaves out of the oven I slather melted butter and delectable jam for my tastebuds in less than 2 minutes. I barely managed to keep a loaf aside for photography! These are excellent by themselves, with jam, butter, or anything else you can slap on some bread. Enjoy!