March 16, 2020

Irish Soda Bread

Irish Soda Bread is a quick bread that does not require any yeast. Instead, all of its leavening comes from baking soda and buttermilk. It’s dense, yet soft and has the most incredible crusty exterior. By using wholemeal flour and adding a good handful of mixed seeds this recipe packs a nutritional punch.

Traditionally, soda bread is formed into a soft dough shaped into a round and cut with a cross before baking. This recipe calls for a very wet mix which is baked in a loaf tin, to some it is also known as a wheaten bread.

Kenwood Ireland has kindly gifted me a brand new Kmix in order to create this lovely St Patrick’s Day recipe for you. I received a black one, which I love, it just looks so beautiful and blends in so well with all my other appliances. It is also available in cream, white and red to match any kitchen.

The Kmix comes with accompanying bowl tools, K-Beater, whisk and dough hook, which allows you to create flavoured bread, stylish cakes and enticing pavlovas with ease.

Also, there are over 20 additional attachments available, so whether you want to make your own pasta or mince your own meat, you can get creative in the kitchen.

For this recipe, I have only used the KBeater attachment.

How to make Irish Soda Bread

Combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl and make sure that they are well mixed. I just gave it a quick stir in my Kenwood KMix.

If you are mixing your ingredients by hand it is best to make a little well in the centre of the flour and to slowly start mixing the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.

You don’t need to do this if you are using a stand mixer. Always start on a low setting to prevent the flour from splashing everywhere. To up the nutritional value of the bread, I opted for wholemeal flour, the coarser the better. Wholemeal flour requires more liquid which makes this dough quite wet.

The dough comes together easily, it doesn’t require kneading by hand for minutes. You can mix it with a spoon or step back and let your stand mixer do the work for you. The great thing about the glass bowl of the Kenwood Kmix is that you can always see how the dough is coming together without having to stop the mixer.

Unlike the traditional Irish soda bread recipes, this one needs to be baked in two 1lb loaf tins. The texture of the mixture resembles the one of porridge, so don’t panic, all is going to be okay.

Divide the dough into two parchment paper-lined loaf tins and bake for about 45-50 minutes or until an inserted wooden skewer comes out clean.

Tips

If you don’t have buttermilk at home you can substitute it with 500 ml milk and 25 ml red wine vinegar for it.

If you use rapeseed oil instead of olive oil it will get an even nuttier flavour.

I absolutely love my Kenwood KMix, it has made my life so much easier. It has so much power and a big capacity that I regularly double recipes and freeze them in batches.

I slice the bread and freeze it in portions of 4 slices. Whenever I crave Irish soda bread I take it out of the freezer and put it straight into the toaster which gives it this freshly baked smell and taste. Of course, you can defrost it at room temperature as well.

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Your turn

Are you celebrating St Patrick’s Day? We can’t really celebrate it this year because of Coronavirus, but it is a great excuse to bring some Irishness into your home with this lovely Soda Bread Recipe. I’m looking forward to reading your replies in the comments.

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4.31 from 23 votes