Irish Soda Bread

I'm not sure that the origination of this recipe is from Ireland. One website I reviewed suggested that this form of bread came from Native Americans where it has allegedly been documented they used Pearl Ash, a natural soda formed from the ashes of burnt wood to make bread.  The author suggested that the Irish somehow found out about this and started using bicarbonate of soda to make bread following their potato crop devastation in the 1840s.  This sounds like nonsense to me.  Just how did the Irish have recipe reciprocity with Native American tribes?  And where is it documented that Native Americans made bread from wheat? The carbohydrate of choice among Native Americans, like their South American cousins, was corn, not wheat. Wheat was an old world crop that did not, in fact, find its way to the Caribbean or to either of the American continents until the Colombian Exchange after the late fifteenth century.  So it is highly unlikely that the Irish got their inspiration for this bread from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. It more likely came from somewhere closer to home.

In fact, it is well documented that commercial bakers of the 1820s in London began experimenting with the volatile reaction between baking soda, an alkaline, and hydrochloric acid to induce the production of carbon dioxide as a substitute for much more expensive yeast and the biological process of producing carbon dioxide as the yeast metabolizes sugar, which was also expensive. These bakers later discovered that buttermilk was also acidic and a far more palatable form of acid as a bread ingredient. So, the concoction known as soda bread was in the public domain on that side of the planet when the Irish began making it en masse as a substitute for their beloved potatoes.

Traditional soda bread is really the amalgamation of only four ingredients: flour, salt, baking soda and buttermilk.  It required no kneading and was baked in a Dutch oven over burning embers.  Almost all recipes for Irish Soda Bread these days include dried fruit, generally raisins, and may well include butter, eggs and sugar.

The recipe I used for inspiration came from someone named MP Welty on the All Recipes website. Welty made some additions to the original soda bread ingredient list and gave instructions for the dough to be "knead[ed] slightly."  That was ambiguous, but I did knead my dough for about thirty seconds, just long enough to ensure there were no pockets of un-blended flour.  Welty didn't use dried fruit, but I did. Since My Number One Fan has an aversion to raisins, however, I used dried blueberries.

I was happy with the results but may well experiment further.  My bread was just a tad on the crumbly side, like something between a scone and cornbread.  And while that wasn't necessarily bad with a chunk of Irish butter on top, it might make things a little difficult for a sandwich.

Nevertheless, Irish Soda Bread, although gracing my table for a St. Patrick's Day dinner celebration, would be a fine thing to make any time of year.

Ingredients
4 cups all-purpose flour
4 tbsp granulated sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick butter (1/2 cup), plus another 1/4 cup, melted in the microwave
1 cup buttermilk, plus another 1/4 cup
1 large egg, beaten
1/3 cup dried blueberries, raisins, cranberries or currants
non-stick cooking spray (like, Pam) 

The Recipe
Preheat the oven to 375°F with a rack in the top 1/3 of the oven. Line a sheet pan with aluminum foil and spray lightly with non-stick spray.

Mix the dry ingredients first: flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.  Blend together well in a mixing bowl with a wire whisk.  Add the dried fruit and mix again until the fruit is more or less evenly distributed.

Add the melted butter, buttermilk and the beaten egg to the dry ingredients.  Use a mixing spoon to incorporate the wet ingredient into the dry ingredients and stop when the dough comes together, i.e., when there is no more visible dry flour.

On a floured surface (I used a second sheet pan lined with non-stick aluminum foil) and with slightly floured hands, knead the bread just long enough to ensure there are no streaks of flour and that the dough looks homogeneous.

Turn out the dough onto the treated sheet pan and form it into a round loaf. Using a sharp knife, cut a large "X" into the top 1/4" to 1/2" of the dough.

Mix the 1/4 cup of buttermilk and 1/4 cup of butter together, then slather it all over the loaf using a basting brush.

Place the sheet pan in the oven for thirty minutes.  Remove the loaf from the oven and brush again with the remaining buttermilk and butter mixture.  Return the loaf to the oven for another 15-20 minutes until a bamboo skewer or wooden toothpick stuck into the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Allow to cool on a rack for thirty minutes before serving.  Or cool thoroughly for 90-minutes to two hours before sealing in a large zip lock bag to be eaten later.  Store in your dark, cool, pantry - not the refrigerator.  The loaf will be good for a couple of days and reheats well when zapped briefly for 5-10 seconds in the microwave.