(A Lighter) Irish Soda Bread

Reaching back into the Cook's Tour archives for two terrific Irish Soda Bread recipes just in time for next week's St Patrick's Day festivities! What are your baking plans for this holiday? Leave a comment below. 

I recently subscribed to The Baking Sheet from King Arthur Flour and received my first issue last week.  And during a leisurely train ride on Sunday from Virginia to New Jersey I had time to leaf through the early Spring issue.  I love Irish Soda Bread so this recipe for Limerick Soda Bread caught my attention, but what really stood out was the fact that each slice has only 64 calories and 1 gram of fat. There is no sacrifice of taste here and I love the spongy feel to the bread and the play of the sweet and savory flavors. This recipe is courtesy of Ariel's Restaurant in Brookfield, Vermont. 


Some of you may remember my St Paddy's Day posting from 2009 with my usual go-to recipe: Barbara's Irish Soda Bread.  Well, this new lighter version has all the requisite ingredients, such as buttermilk, baking powder, raisins, etc., but it's a more traditional rendition than the 2009 recipe because it calls for whole fennel seeds.  Barbara's recipe is sweeter and more cake-like.  Believe me, they're both delicious and you won't go wrong with either one.


I took this up-close photo so you could see the tremendous height you get with this bread.  It's a good 2" high. 

Back to the train ride. I had a work event in Virginia over the weekend and while I was away, a huge Nor'easter blew across the mid-Atlantic states. We're talking torrential rain with wind gusts of 60 mph in some places. There was flooding, downed power lines and trees torn out of their roots all over the tri-state area. All flights in/out of the area were canceled on Saturday and if they weren't canceled, they were backed up for hours. So rather than risk being stuck at the Richmond airport all day on Sunday, I opted to ride the rails. I grabbed a business class ticket, arrived at the beautiful 1901 Beaux Arts Richmond Main Street station about 30 minutes before departure, and then settled in for the trip. Complementary beverages, NY Times, power outlets at your seat, and the landscape of America rolling by your window. You see every kind of town on a train - from the quaint charm of Ashland, Virginia to gritty industrial towns like Rahway, New Jersey. But when the Jefferson Memorial, the Washington Monument, and the Capitol appeared right in front of me, I thought, more people (including me) ought to take advantage of this mode of transportation and really see America. Even while waiting in the station, there was a sense of unhurriedness - a throwback to a time when the country operated at a more relaxed and genteel pace. 


The six-hour ride gave me time to read not only The Baking Sheet newsletter, but also the complete Sunday NY Times, two magazines, and watch an old episode of Monk on my iPod. But for a good portion of the trip, I just watched the scenery as it came to me. There's something to be said for traveling this way if you've got the time. Even if you don't, you might want to make time. 


Happy St Patricks Day to you!


Limerick Soda Bread (courtesy The Baking Sheet and Ariel's Restaurant)


3-1/2 C all-purpose flour

1/4 C sugar

1 t salt

4 t baking powder

1/2 t baking soda

1/4 C whole fennel seeds

1 C dried currants or golden raisins

1 LG egg

2 C buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour, or spray with pan spray, a 10" round cake pan.

In large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Whisk until well mixed. Add fennel seeds and currants/raisins and mix well.

Whisk together egg and buttermilk in small bowl. Add to dry ingredients and stir with spatula or wooden spoon until just combined. Do not overmix. The batter will be quite stiff. Scrape into the prepared pan and spread out to cover pan evenly. Bake until golden brown, about 50 min. Cool before removing from pan. Yield: 40 slices, 1/2" x 4-6".

Per serving: 64 cal, 1g fat, 1g fiber, 13 carb

Print Recipe Here!

"Credit Munch"

n. - Recession-induced comfort eating.

From the U.K. Daily Express (May 11, 2009): "Stressed-out Britons have piled on 20 million stone in a year trying to "comfort eat" their way through the recession, according to [a] report out today. The condition - dubbed the credit munch - has seen three in five Britons put on weight in the past 12 months."

I don't know about you, but I don't really need the current economic crisis to force me into eating my favorite comfort foods. But, then again, I'm not a stress eater. I'm a stress baker. And I find I'm doing ALOT of baking lately (thank you, bankers and mortgage brokers of America). So to try and offset the frequency of baking, I am baking low-fat items (notice I didn't say low-taste items - I can't deal with that). Last week, if you recall, I made that delicious low-fat Banana Oatmeal Bread. Today, I baked some very tasty, low-fat, Carrot-Raisin Muffins. These are from the WebMD Magazine. They are only 130 calories and have less than 4 grams of fat, and with the carrots, raisins, and yogurt, you get a nice helping of vitamin A and iron. The recipe is below - try them when you need a credit-munch!

Carrot-Raisin Muffins

2 C all-purpose flour

1/2 C sugar

2 t baking soda

1 t ground cinnamon

1/8 t ground nutmeg

1/4 t salt

1/2 C fat-free yogurt

1/4 C canola oil

1/4 C 1% low-fat milk

1 t vanilla extract

2 large eggs

2 C shredded carrots

1/2 C raisins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place the muffin cup liners in muffin cups. Set aside.

Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, spices, and salt in large below; stir to mix. In a separate bowl, combine yogurt, oil, milk, vanilla, and eggs, and whisk to combine. Add liquid ingredients to flour mixture, and gently stir just until combined (do not over-mix). Lightly stir in carrots and raisins.

Spoon batter into muffin cups and bake for 20-25 minutes. Test doneness by inserting a toothpick that comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool on wire rack. Makes 18 servings (serving size: 1 muffin).

BTW: this recipe makes regular size muffins, not the giant style that you might find in retail shops.

Irish Soda Bread

It's that time of year - when almost everything you see is about to "magically" turn green. From beer to highway lanes to cupcakes. It is, of course, St Patrick's Day. I don't have anything green for you, but I do have a fabulous Irish Soda Bread recipe.

I was curious as to the history of Irish Soda Bread so I did a little research, and just in case you were also curious here's the story. One entry I found, said that Irish Soda Bread wasn't invented by the Irish at all...this didn't sound right to me (and this wasn't even from Wikipedia) so I dug a little deeper. I found a reference from English Bread and Yeast Cookery by Elizabeth David (this book is considered to be THE source for information on all types of breads, yeast breads included): "Soda Breads. Quickly made breads, griddle cakes and scones with bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar or tartaric acid became popular in Ireland, Scotland and England well over a hundred years ago. The properties of chemical raising agents had been appreciated early in the nineteenth century, and experiments with commercially practical formulas had been successful during the 1850s, and earlier...At first, chemical mixes seem to have been used mainly to lighten home-made biscuits, girdle scones, oatcakes, and other bakestone products which had previously been made without any benefit of any aerating agen. It was only later, after they had been much advertised as yeast powder, dried yeast, yeast substitute, that housewives began to think that chemical mixtures could...replace fresh yeast in their tea cake, spice cake and bread recipes...At that period, German or compressed yeast, much like the bakers yeast we know today, was increasingly replacing the old ale yeasts and barms, as was very generally known, although incorrectly, as dried yeast...It is try that well-made Irish soda bread, baked over a peat fire and with meal ground from soft Irish wheat unblended with imported high gluten grain, is unsurpassed for flavour. The draweback with these breads, even when made in ideal conditions, is that they quickly become dry, so are only at their best when freshly baked..."

But this page from Land of Milk and Honey: The Story of Traditional Irish Food and Drink by Brid Mahon is much more interesting: "One of the oldest of all leavens is the sourdough method, and like many great discoveries it probably came about by accident. An old fable describes what happened. Long ago in the "stone age" when a woman made bread by the simple expedient of mixing ground corn and water together and baking the dough on hot stones or in the fire, a gound girl had just put down a loaf to bake when her lover invited her to go on a hunting trip. Off she sped, leaving the mixing bowl unwashed. When next she went to mix a cake in the bowl, a lump of sour fermented dough from the last baking was mixed in with the new dough. The result, of course, was delicious spongy bread which gained her the reputation of being the best bread-maker in Ireland, to her immense satisfaction. Even her lover had to admit that she was a better cook than his mother. Barm beer or liquid yeast obtained from beer-brewing was used from early times. Sowans (fermented juice of oat husks) was another traditional leaven, as was potato juice (potatoes grated and the juice allowed to turn sour). Bread soda, which would act not only as a leavening agent, but create the traditional soda bread, did not come into use until the first half of the 19th century. Cream of tartar and commercial baking powders continue to be used down to the present time." I like this version better, don't you? Luckily, today we don't have to bake over hot stones or an open fire - I don't think I would have done so well back then.

So then, on to our modern-day recipe. This was given to me by a friend I worked with many years ago. It is my favorite Irish Soda Bread recipe. But for you traditionalists out there, be forewarned: there are no caraway seeds in this version. This bread is wonderful slightly warm out of the oven, but keeps well for several days wrapped in foil. It is heavenly toasted with a wee bit (sorry, I had to get some Irish colloquialism in here) of butter and a cup of tea. And when you need just a little nosh to get you through the morning, say at 10am? This is it. All right - I'll just come out with it: this Irish Soda Bread is good any time!

I'll leave you with a very appropriate Irish proverb that says one should serve only "the newest of food and the oldest of drink." May the luck of the Irish be with you this St Paddy's Day!

Barbara's Irish Soda Bread

4 C flour

1 t. baking soda

1 C sugar

3/4 C melted butter

1 C raisins (pre-soaked in water)

1-1/3 C buttermilk

1 egg

Make a cinnamon-sugar mixture for top of bread.

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Foil-line a 10" oven-proof frying pan and butter the foil.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, and sugar. Then combine the remaining ingredients into the dry ingredients. Mix all together until just combined. Scrape batter into foil-lined pan.

Make a cross in the top of the dough with a knife (FYI: a reference I found said this was not for religious reasons; it was a very practical way to divvy up the bread into four portions - pretty smart, huh?). Sprinkle the top of dough with cinnamon-sugar mixture. Bake for 1 hour.