Classic Irish Soda Bread Recipe

When you start planning food for any St. Patrick’s Day festivities, there are a few delectables that immediately come to mind.  Cabbage rolls, maybe an Irish stew, but most importantly, Irish soda bread. If you’re unfamiliar with it, Irish soda bread is a lightly sweetened quick bread that is flavored with orange zest and currants.  Let’s dive into the details!

 

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This post was originally published on March 14, 2019.  It has been updated and republished on January 7, 2021.

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Story Time

 

To be honest, I don’t think I had Irish soda bread until I was out of college and working as a Spanish scheduling reporter for Rovi (they own TV Guide).  Since I was a member of the international team, we ended up celebrating a lot of holidays.  (There was a pretty tasty bake off for Bastille Day…)  

Well, someone brought in Irish soda bread for St. Patrick’s Day and I’m pretty sure I spent more time by that loaf than at my desk!  There was also a platter of Irish potatoes that I couldn’t keep my mitts off of. They were little tasty nuggets of something sweet and dusted with cocoa powder and cinnamon.  Anyone know what these are?!

 

 

Back to the Bread

 

I love bread.  I love baking.  But baking bread hasn’t always been easy for me.  With practice, my bread has come a long way!  In fact, I even did a bread baking challenge with my email subscribers and we worked our way through quick breads, basic yeast dough, and enriched yeast bread.

As I type this, the Irish soda bread is cooling down in the skillet and it smells AMAZING!  I swear that orange zest is one of the best ingredients ever. That’s the secret ingredient in the Mini Dutch Babies that makes them irresistible.  I used the zest of an entire orange, but if you want less of a punch, just go with one teaspoon.

 

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Top Tips for Quick Bread

 

If you also have a love/hate relationship with bread baking, just know that it gets better with every loaf you make.  Don’t be afraid to “Take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!”, to quote Ms. Frizzle.  My banana bread used to be hit or miss, but I’m confident with it now.  I’ve even gone on to tackle saffranskrans!

 

But it also helps to have a few tips and tricks up your sleeve:

• Mix gently to create a soft, tender bread.
• Don’t be afraid of a little color on the loaf.
• If it gets too dark, tent a piece of foil over it.
• Knock the bottom of a loaf to see if it’s done.  If it’s hollow, you’re good!  Or use a thermometer and look to hit 190℉.

 

 

Irish Soda Bread Making

 

Let’s talk details.  Like where did I get this recipe?  Well, this is a bit of a hodgepodge of a recipe, if I’m being honest.  Originally, I had planned on using a recipe from Ina Garten, because hello!  Ina! (Also, my maiden name is Garten so we’re pretty much related…even though we’re not.)  But I made that recipe once before and had trouble getting a cooked interior. The bane of my baking existence!  

Just this past week, YouTube suggested I watch the Preppy Kitchen video about Irish soda bread.  I love watching John bake because he’s as much of a hot mess as I am in the kitchen! But in like an awesome way because his bakes are perfection.  Anywho… He baked his loaf in a cast iron skillet! That blew my mind. But I didn’t care for his recipe just because of personal taste.

 

In the end, I give you an Ina Garten + Preppy Kitchen Irish Soda Bread Hybrid!  This Irish soda bread features the ingredients from Ina’s recipe with the cooking method from the Preppy Kitchen recipe.  It’s pretty awesome and I think you’re going to love it.

 

Related Reading: Cast Iron Skillet Pizza

 

Cast Iron Cooking

 

I got all excited about using a cast iron skillet for a few reasons.  First of all, it conducts a lot of heat so it’s going to give the bread a great crust and help it cook thoroughly.  Second of all, it helps give the Irish soda bread some shape. This dough is crazy sticky and not very easy to shape.  The skillet prevents it from spreading and lets it rise up instead of all over the place.

 

If you don’t have a cast iron skillet, baking the dough on a cookie sheet is totally fine!  Just line it with parchment paper and you are good to go. My skillet needed a little TLC, so I used this video from Tasty to properly clean and season my cast iron.

 

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Recipe Notes

 

Making the Irish soda bread dough is kinda like making biscuits (cut out or drop?) because you cut the cutter into your dry ingredients, stir in your wet mix and gently bring it together.  Remember to be gentle so that you don’t end up with a tough loaf! This dough is super wet, so I used a bench scraper to help pick it up off the counter and place in my cast iron skillet. 

 

Next time, I may even try mixing it in my stand mixer with the hook attachment.  Honestly, I have no idea how this will turn out and I’ll have to be careful to mix gently.  But this may end up being a good idea, I guess we’ll find out with the next loaf!

It’s very important to toss the currants with flour before you fold them into the dough.  The flour helps prevent the currants from sticking together in one big clump.  You’ll do this in a lot of recipes where you add fruit or nuts to the dough, like my Mini Blueberry Muffins.

 

 

Scoring the Irish Soda Bread

 

Once you place the dough in the cast iron skillet, you’ll need to score the dough.  This basically means you’ll be cutting a big X on the center of the dough. Bakers score dough to help the steam escape in a controlled manner and to help the dough cook evenly in the center.  If your cut is too shallow, the middle could be under-cooked. But if you cut too deep the structure of the bread could be damaged.

Scoring sounds simple enough, but it takes a lot of practice.  This loaf was tough to cleanly slice and my blades were not sharp enough.  Use the sharpest blade you have and slice quickly for a clean mark. Slice quickly, and firmly.  For this loaf, you’ll be cutting deeper than say a loaf of French bread.

 

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Currants or Raisins?

 

I’m a big fan of Preppy Kitchen, but I did not love the idea of an Irish soda bread loaded with pecans, raisins, and golden raisins.  That just doesn’t sound right, even if it does sound tasty. To me, an Irish soda bread features orange zest and currants and that’s about it.  I’m no purist or Irish soda bread expert, this is purely personal taste.

 

If you don’t like currants, can’t find them, or just don’t plan on using them, no biggie.  You can just use plain raisins, golden raisins, or a combo of the two. It really doesn’t make a big difference in the final product.  Technically, currants are just a small raisin variety.  If you do jazz this up, I’d love to hear about it!

 

 

Enjoy!

 

The orange zest makes every bite of this Irish soda bread full of flavor while the little currants peppered throughout the dough add a nice little fruity taste.  Irish soda bread is a delicious loaf to make at any time of the year, but St. Patrick’s Day is the perfect excuse to bust out this delicious recipe. Personally, I’ll be eating mine with a mug of tea and a big smear of butter.

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