Irish bread. The fastest and easiest bread

How to make irish soda bread, Irish bread with bicarbonate or soda.

Surely when you hear about making bread at home , long hours of fermenting and hard work of kneading come to mind to achieve something minimally decent. This statement is true but there are honorable exceptions. 

The Irish bread or Irish soda bread, Irish soda bread is one of these exceptions. It is a very own bread from Irish cuisine very quick and easy to prepare.

We are talking about a bread without leavening , bicarbonate is used instead of the yeast for bread , which in combination with the lactic acid in buttermilk will help to add volume to this bread.

.instagram-follow img{width:100%;height:auto;} @media screen and (min-width: 1000px) {.instagram-follow {display:block;clear:both;float:right;width:50%;margin-left:1em;}}

We could understand it as a salty cake , the bicarbonate would serve as chemical yeast to provide gas to the dough and make it grow.

If we have the possibility of getting buttermilk it would be perfect, if not we can do it at home by adding lemon juice to the milk and allowing it to curdle for a few minutes.

Lacking the fermentation process, which would add flavor to the final result of any bread, it is essential that the flours we use are of the best quality. They will be by themselves the ones that will give this bread its best version.

If we dare, we can make variations on this soda bread , using only white wheat flour, adding a part of rye or substituting milk for the traditional Guinness beer . As famous as her own Guinness Chocolate Cake .

Any of these options will make you enjoy tasty bread that will take you directly to the most classic Dublin.

Preparation of base or dough of irish soda bread

1. We start by preparing a homemade buttermilk. Mix the milk with the juice of half a lemon and let it sit for 10 minutes. At this time we will see how the milk acquires a slightly curdled milk appearance. We reserve.
2. In a bowl we mix the dry ingredients, the two types of wheat flours, the bicarbonate and the salt.
3. We add the butter crumbling it and incorporating it to the dry ingredients with the fingertips.
4. Add the curdled milk and the beaten egg. We mix everything with our hands until all the ingredients are integrated. We will have a somewhat sticky dough.
5. We pass the dough to a floured surface and form a ball. We pass the ball to the oven tray that we have previously floured.
6. We make two cuts in the shape of a cross on the surface of the bread and sprinkle with a pinch of flour.

Baking and Presenting Irish Soda Bread

1. We preheat the oven to 250º C above and below the temperature and without air, with the tray where we are going to bake the bread inside. So, by the time we put the dough on top, it will be hot.
2. With the oven previously heated above and below, without the option of a fan, we lower it to 220º C and bake the soda bread for 15 minutes.
3. After this time, we lower the temperature to 200º C and continue baking for another 30 minutes.
4. We remove the bread from the oven and let it cool completely on a rack.

With minimal work and with the usual ingredients at home, we can enjoy homemade bread at home without much effort.

So even if we don’t have fresh or dry yeast at home, we always have a choice to bake bread, baking soda is rarely lacking in a home.

You can see all the photos of the recipe in the step by step recipe for Irish bread with bicarbonate. If you have doubts, follow the photos and you will get a perfect bread.