Irish Brown Soda Bread... the REAL deal!

Last year Brad and I traveled to Ireland for a couple weeks on a study abroad trip with school. It was an amazing experience! If there was one thing I could tell every freshman starting college it would be to take advantage of any study abroad trips available to them! I wish I would have known to do it sooner, rather than as a graduation gift to myself. I would have went on far more trips! I can't imagine a more beautiful and captivating place than Ireland, though. I dream of going back and will always have a special place in my heart for it. When we first arrived I noticed that they served these little loaves of dense brown bread where we stopped to eat in Dublin. I really didn't care for it. Well, as it turned out, they served that bread with every meal, in every town we went to. It grew on me and I went from disliking it, to craving it! I got the recipe from a friend of mine there and have been working on translating it (they weigh everything instead of measuring it) and making it taste the same with the mediocre ingredients we can get in the US. One of the truly amazing things about Ireland is that everything is made with REAL ingredients. Fresh ingredients. It isn't a big place so everything is within a couple hours drive. Artificial sweeteners and margarine are not found in ANYTHING! The food tastes different. It is so much better! We just can't get those quality ingredients here. Everything is made in the cheapest way possible.... yes I know. Stepping off of my soapbox now.

Anyway, this is as close as I have been able to imitate the recipe with what I have available. It is pretty darn close! This isn't the typical Irish Soda Bread, most Americans think of. This is the real deal. What they really serve in Ireland. You might just get addicted! I make a couple of loaves every week now. The best part! You mix it and throw it in the oven. No yeast, no waiting for it to rise, and VERY little kneading!

Brown Soda Bread

Unbaked Soda Bread

- 3 cups whole wheat flour
- 1 cup white all purpose flour
- 1/8 cup wheat germ (gives it more of the nutty flavor Irish whole wheat flour has)
- 1/8 cup old fashioned rolled oats
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3/4 - 1 pint buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F

2. Mix dry ingredients

3. Make a hole in the middle of the dry ingredients and start mixing in the buttermilk. It should be a dense dough and you may not need the whole cup. I usually use the whole cup, though. Not all of the dry ingredients will be incorporated. That is normal. Don't over mix! Just mix until it is a consistent ball of dough.it is normally slightly dry.

4. Dump dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead approximately 10 times.

5. Shape into loaf. Cut a deep cross into the top of the loaf. Bake immediately because the chemical reaction caused by the baking soda has already begun.

6. Bake for approximately 40 minutes. The loaf should sound hollow if you flip it over and knock on the bottom of it.

7. When you take it out of the oven, wrap it in a clean towel, flip it on its side and lean it up against something at an angle to allow it to fully cool.

8. Enjoy! Best served warm with a couple of pads of real cream butter! Amazing!

 I store mine (for as long as it takes to get eaten... usually not long) wrapped in that towel on the counter. Another amazing thing I learned in Ireland: Not everything has to be stored in a cold, sealed environment all of the time. In fact, some things don't store as well like that. In the markets (grocery stores) there, all of the bread was baked in loaves and placed in baskets. Open baskets, without any packaging. If they trust that at a store full of people, I think in my own personal kitchen filled only with my family, things will be fine. Do you know that they store all of their eggs on unrefrigerated shelves too?!Oh, and you have to pay for plastic grocery bags! 23 EURO each in Dublin! And, everything is recycled! It is difficult to find a trash can sometimes! Smart smart people! I will leave that for another soap box moment. :)