Welcome to our website !

Tastes of home - part one Traditional Irish soda bread

There are certain things that you will always make yourself and for me, one of those things is Soda Bread. You can't get more traditional than this bread, these days people refer to it as quick bread as it does not require any proving. Its simply a case of mixing the ingredients together and sticking it in the oven.

I vary my recipe depending on what I want to serve the bread with. I sometimes add sugar and it's nice with cheese, if I'm going to serve it with something like smoked salmon (very traditional) I omit the sugar. One thing to note though this bread does not last very long, so does need to be eaten within a few days of making it. It freezes very well so you can put some in the freezer once cooled if the portion is too large.

 There are two versions of this bread, brown and white and I will give the recipes for both.

Brown soda bread

 500g wholemeal flour or 300g wholemeal and 200g plain flour
5g salt
10g bicarbonate of soda
20g sugar (optional)
50g wheatgerm (optional)
50g bran (optional)
300 - 400ml buttermilk

 White soda bread

 500g plain flour
5g salt
10g bicarbonate of soda
300 - 400ml buttermilk
15g roughly chopped dried seaweed (optional)

 Preheat the oven (normal) to 200c (fan)

 For both white and brown breads
Put all dry ingredients in a bowl and mix well
Add the buttermilk gradually until it forms a wettish dough, but not too wet, you may not need to use all the milk
Tip the dough onto a baking sheet and form into a round or whatever shape you fancy, you can also bake this in a bread tin if you like
Ensure the tin has been buttered to avoid sticking or use non stick parchment
Bake in the oven for 60 mins (you can tell the bread is ready when it has a hollow sound when tapped on the bottom)

 Cooking on the BBQ
Set the BBQ up for indirect cooking at 200c and place the stainless steel griddle on with the pizza stone on top
You can use a cast iron bread pan (ensure it is well greased or use non stick baking parchment or a baking sheet
Cook for 60 minutes (you can tell the bread is ready when it has a hollow sound when tapped on the bottom)