Irish soda bread with caraway
Because Irish soda bread uses no yeast. it is rather fast to whip up! This bread has a delicious flavor all on it's own, Mine has a good amount of caraway seeds. I moisten the top of the loaf just slightly with good quality olive oil just to make the kosher salt stick, My husband learned how to make this bread rather than wait on me. I am not a baker, but this is so easy, anyone can make it.
Servings: 10 Slices
Cost: $4
Equipment
- 1 Dutch oven or baking pan
Ingredients
- 3 1/2 Cups Unbleached all-purpose flour May use combination of other flours such as wheat, buckwheat, einkorn, etc.
- 1 tsp kosher salt As dry ingredient
- 1 Tsp Baking soda - level spoon! Use Bob's Redmill or an organic brand if possible. Don't use Armour.
- 1 1/2 Cups Organic buttermilk
- 1 Tbsp Caraway seeds
- 2 Tbsp Coconut sugar
- 1 Tsp Good quality olive oil
- 1 Tbsp kosher salt to sprinkle on top
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 ° F.
- Line a dutch oven or baking sheet with parchment paper. (I use a 5 qt ceramic, lidded, saucepan.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine all of your dry ingredients (except salt for topping). Make certain all of the dry ingredients are mixed together very well.
- Using a large wooden spoon, make a "well" in the middle of the dry ingredients. Slowly add the buttermilk, maybe 4 tablespoons at a time. Stir in flour around the "well" to start forming a ball. Add a dribble of milk only when the ball is no longer picking up flour.
- Keep adding milk and pull in additional flour until a shaggy dough appears. You may have used all of your milk and still have flour left over,Take about 2 tablespoons of your flour and spread it across a cutting board.
- Place your dough ball on the cutting board and start folding then processing your dough ball. When you feel any spot that is damp or sticky, add some of the flour mixture to it until its all incorporated.
- Knead until the dough ball has all of the dry ingredients incorporated and the ball feels the same texture throughout.
- Dribble your olive oil in the bowl to lightly cover the size of the dough ball. Place your dough ball in the bowl and move it around to lightly coat the top with olive oil. Sprinkle the oil with the remaining kosher salt.
- Cut a 1/2" deep X into the top of the dough ball and allow to rest for about 5-10 minutes.
- Transfer to the baking sheet or dutch oven, If using a dutch oven, you can bake it covered for the first 15 minutes and avoid having to turn the pan every 15 minutes.
- Place in oven for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, turn the pan 180° and lower the temperature to 375℉. At this time you can remove the lid from the dutch oven,
- Bake for an additional 25-30 minutes until crust is golden brown.
- Turn out onto a baking sheet or tea towel and allow to cool about 20 minutes before serving.
Notes
This is a Snap Pea Sheep recipe.
There are hundreds of recipes out there. This was my twist on it with the coconut sugar and the kosher salt topping.
Using a dutch oven holds in the heat and browns the loaf evenly. I can't see any reason this could not be in a loaf pan either.
This is not a wfpb compliant recipe. If you are going to eat bread regardless, this is a great choice because of the simplistic ingredients.
Some people add chopped raisins to their bread. Rosemary or other herbs could be added.
This is not gluten free.