Traditional Irish Brown Soda Bread - Easy to make (a mess of)!

There’s a lot of talk these days about sourdough and all kinds of different breads but I still love coming back to the humble brown soda. It’s easy to make but also easy to make a mess of. Follow these instructions carefully and you’ll be fine.

Makes: One round

Time: 50-60 minutes

Ingredients
225g Wholemeal Flour (and a little extra for dusting)
225g Plain White Flour
5g Bread Soda (also know as baking soda or bicarbonate of soda)
5g Salt
400ml Buttermilk

Equipment
Large mixing bowl
Sieve (or a whisk if you don’t have a sieve)
Baking tray or sheet
A long knife like a bread knife
Oven

1. Preheat the oven to 230°C.

2. Sieve together all of the dry ingredients (flours, salt, bread soda) in a large mixing bowl. Don’t worry if all of the wholemeal doesn’t go through, toss it all in at the end. The sieving is just to make sure the soda is evenly dispersed throughout the flour. (If you don’t have a sieve, stir all of the dry ingredients in the bowl with a whisk.)

3. Before you start to work with the wet ingredients, shake a little brown flour on the counter underneath your bowl.

4. Pour in almost all of the buttermilk, keeping some back in case the mixture is too wet. (By it’s nature it’s quite a wet mixture anyway).

5. With one hand held like a claw and the other on the side of the bowl, mix everything in the bowl together. As soon as it has come together, stop, don’t over-work it. Pull everything in the bowl out onto your floured counter.

6. At this point it is important to work quickly. Once the acid in the buttermilk has been mixed with the soda it begins to react and you want the loaf in the oven as soon as possible. Wash your hands, dry them and come back to shape the loaf.

7. Get some flour on your hands and bring the loaf together to form a loose ball, handling it from beneath like a little pillow.

8. As soon as the dry flour has covered the entirety of the outside of the loaf, place it on the baking tray. Using a long knife make a cross in the top about 1.5cm deep.

9. Place the loaf in the oven and bake at 230°C for around 15 minutes. Lower the temperature then to 210°C and let it bake for another 30 to 40mins. When it is properly baked it will feel light and have a nice crust. You can turn it upside down for the last 10 minutes to help bake the bottom if you like.