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A delicious soda bread for St. Patrick's Day

Since Saint Patrick's Day is on the 17th of this month, you may enjoy making this delicious Irish Soda Bread that my husband makes for us from time to time. Like us, you may be surprised to learn that soda bread did not originate with the Irish. According to the Association of the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread, soda bread is linked back to the Native Americans who used soda ash to leaven their bread. Soda Bread became popular among the poor in Ireland because it was easy to put on the table and used soft wheat flour. Soft wheat flour does not use yeast, which was not always easy to obtain, so what you have is a very satisfying quick bread.

The original bread did not contain raisins (we were wondering about that) so our recipe was dressed up. Here is an original recipe from Ireland. The association mentioned earlier said that these measurements are American. They also suggest using cake flour or pastry flour because it is a soft wheat flour. They also suggest Odlums, an Irish flour that you can find online.

Brown Bread

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. Rub in the butter until the flour is crumbly.

The bottom of the bread will have a hollow sound when tapped to show it is done.
Cover the bread in a tea towel and lightly sprinkle water on the cloth to keep the bread moist.
Let cool and you are ready to have a buttered slice with a nice cup of tea or coffee.

Here is the recipe my husband used from allrecipes.com. In Mike's version, he substituted brown sugar for the white sugar.

"A delicious and easy recipe."
Posted by Recovered Fundie at 6:49 PM