Irish Soda Bread
A rough, craggy loaf from four ingredients and no yeast — on the table in under an hour.
Makes 1 round loaf · Prep 10 min · Bake 40 min
Ingredients
Dough
- 4 cups All-purpose flour
- 1 tsp Baking soda
- 1 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1 3/4 cups Buttermilk
- 2 tbsp Butter, cold and cubed — not traditional, but gives a softer crumb
Instructions
Prep
- Heat the oven to 220°C (425°F) and line a baking sheet. Have everything ready before you mix. (Tip: Genuinely — get the oven fully preheated first. The reaction starts the instant the buttermilk hits the soda and doesn't wait for you.)
Dough
- Whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together. If using the butter, rub it in until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs.
- Make a well, pour in the buttermilk, and stir with a fork just until a shaggy, sticky dough forms.
Shape
- Turn onto a floured surface and knead no more than 8–10 times — just enough to bring it into a rough ball. Flatten slightly into a round about 2 inches thick on the sheet. (Tip: Resist kneading it properly. Every extra turn develops gluten this bread doesn't want, and wastes gas that's already escaping.)
Bake
- Cut a deep cross across the top, about an inch down, and get it straight into the oven. Bake until deeply browned and hollow-sounding underneath. (Tip: The cross isn't decoration — it lets heat into the middle of a dense round so the centre bakes through.)
Cool
- Cool on a rack at least 20 minutes before cutting.
Tips
- No buttermilk?: Stir 1 tbsp lemon juice or white vinegar into a scant cup of milk and let it stand 5 minutes, scaled up as needed. The acid is the point — plain milk won't react with the soda and the loaf won't rise at all.
- Loaf came out flat and dense: Almost always time. If the dough sat on the counter while the oven came up to temperature, most of the carbon dioxide had already escaped. Preheat first, mix last.