Irish Soda Bread
Why I Love This Recipe
When my children were in grade school, their school would have opportunities to do projects related to their heritage. One year the project involved bringing in food that represented their heritage. Having a bit of the Irish on both sides of the family it made sense to pick something traditionally Irish. As it happened my parents traveled to Ireland before the boys were born and brought back with them many items including a couple of cookbooks.
After scouring the cookbooks for a recipe that we actually knew all the ingredients (yes there were many we did not), we settled on soda bread. The boys did the conversion from metric to English measurements but made sure they provided the recipe cards in original form so they could see the reactions from their classmates.
We were a bit nervous when it came out of the oven as it a felt a bit like we made an Irish soda brick but the end product was very good and great with corn beef and cabbage, among other things.
Submitted by: "Kris McCann"
Ingredients You'll Need
450 g (1 lb) plain flour (3 3/4 cup)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon bread soda (baking soda)
400 ml (2/3 pint) buttermilk (1 1/3 cup)
Directions
Sift the flour, salt sugar and baking soda to mix thoroughly. Make a well in the center and stir in the buttermilk gradually to make a soft dough. Turn out on a floured board and knead lightly for a few minutes. Flatten it out into about 1.2 cm (1/2 in thick). With a floured knife, cut a cross on it to cook evenly throughout. Bake at once in a hot oven 230C (450F) for about 45 minutes. To test whether the cake is done or not, tap the bottom - if cooked it should sound hollow.
