Authentic Irish Soda Bread-Yeast Free

Submitted by Ms Happy Farmer

"This soda bread recipe is my personal one and very simple to make. Most homes in Ireland still make this bread daily and all have slight variations in ingredients or baking times. If you have ever traveled to Ireland, this is the soda bread you ate with your seafood chowder, soup, stew and breakfasts!"

 

• Ready In: 55mins
• Ingredients: 8
• Serves: 8

ingredients

• 8 ounces wheat flour
• 8 ounces self-rising flour
• 10 -14 fluid ounces unsweetened plain yogurt
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1⁄2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 pinch salt

directions

1. Grease and flour a 8" (20cm) cake tin (high walls are better but not necessary.).
2. Preheat oven to 190°C/375°F or 180C/350F if using a fan assisted oven.
3. Sieve self-rising flour with bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. (It is important to sieve the bicarbonate of soda with the self-rising flour, if it is added at a later stage it will give the bread a greenish tinge!).
4. Add the wheat flour to the bowl (no need to sieve).
5. In a jug mix the yogurt, honey and olive oil then pour onto the flour mixtures in the bowl.
6. Stir with a wooden spoon until well mixed and a soft sticky dough is formed.
7. Flour a surface for kneading and knead lightly (20 turns max). Form into a round shape, this does not have to fit the tin as it will spread when cooking.
8. Transfer to the floured cake tin and with a knife cut a cross across the top and place in the oven for 45 minutes. (The cutting of the cross helps to portion the bread for slicing in quarters.).
9. Eat when cool with just real butter or your favourite topping and a cup of sweet tea. It is lovely toasted too!

Reviews

[BlackIrish]

Irish soda bread consists of Flour, Salt, Baking Soda, Buttermilk. Nothing else. I'm sure this is a lovely tasting bread but it is not authentic.

 

[Keith Dallmer]

It's a nice recipe. But it's not authentic. No yogurt, no honey , no self-rising flour. Spent plenty of time in people's kitchens in Ireland to tell you this isn't authentic. It's good though.

 

[AaliyahsAaronsMum]

Absolutely GORGEOUS bread! A bit of a crunchy crust on the outside and the inside was so wonderfully soft! We were in Ireland last year for our summer holidays and the soda bread we had there tasted exactly the same! And I did get the recipe off our friend's mum which I can't seem to find now. But from what I remember the ingredients were the same except she used buttermilk instead of yoghurt. I am so glad I found your recipe! So now I can say, I finally have found THE perfect recipe for THE authentic Irish Soda Bread! And this time I won't lose it!!! Thank you, Ms Happy Farmer, for sharing this truly wonderful recipe, definitely wil be making this again!

 

[Lynz79]

Looks like a great version of soda bread, but is definitely not authentic Irish Soda Bread... http://www.sodabread.info/menu/

 

[mombird6464]

I just baked this bread tonight, and it looks beautiful! Unfortunately I won't get to taste it, as I made it as a gift for a friend. Even so, I am reviewing the recipe here, because I had a lot of questions about it, and maybe my review will help clear up someone else's questions. <br/>- First of all, the flour measurements are in ounces. I wasn't sure if that was ounces in weight or ounces in volume. Since we normally measure flour by volume in the US, I went with 8 ounces volume -- that is, one cup (which generally weighs about 6 ounces, or so I've read). In the end, I added 4 more ounces of flour (by weight), because it clearly needed more.<br/>- The first flour ingredient is "wheat flour". I assumed that meant not rye flour, or graham flour, or rice flour, etc. After looking more closely at the photos here on the site, I'm pretty sure she meant "whole wheat flour". I used unbleached white flour, so mine is a white bread, and therefore probably not as authentic as I had hoped. <br/>- The amount of yogurt has so much variation! 10-14 ounces (thank you for specifying "fluid ounces") made it a little tricky. I started with 12 ounces, then ended up adding about one more ounce after I added the 4 extra ounces of flour. That made it soft and sticky, yet kneadable.<br/>I will try this again!