Luck of the Irish Soda Bread

While it's still the month of March I figured I'd better write up the recipe for Irish Soda Bread I made on St. Patrick's Day this year! (Green food coloring is optional but, you know, everything should be green on St. Patrick's Day...). This recipe was adapted from a friend of my mom's with an Irish last name (though by marriage), and she really knows her stuff! The only changes I made from her original draft (besides the food coloring) was my typical use of whole wheat pastry flour and my choice to remove the raisins (I was out of raisins and tend to prefer my breads without them). The result was a dense and hearty Irish treat that tastes best warm with a little bit of butter.

Ingredients:

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 Tablespoons unsalted butter
2 eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk
about 20 drops of green food coloring

Directions:

1.) Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

2.) Cut the cold butter into small cubes, then add it to the flour mixture and use your hands to stir until the mixture is crumbly.

3.) Add 1 egg and the buttermilk into your flour mixture and stir until it is just moistened. Knead this dough about one minute (at this point you can add the food coloring IF you want your bread to turn a kind of weird green) and then shape it into a small, round loaf.

4.) Place the loaf on a baking sheet coated with nonstick cooking spray. Cut a 1/4 inch deep cross in the top and brush the remaining egg over the loaf after beating the egg lightly. Bake for about 30-35 minutes (I tried about 26 to start but it was still a bit undercooked, so you might want to wait until at least 30 and then test it before it gets too brown).

If you're craving bread, this takes less than an hour to make and requires no yeast to rise. There are other Irish soda bread recipes out there that just use baking soda (hence the "soda" in the same--no fizzy beverages required), but this one suited my needs for St. Patrick's Day breakfast and marks off one more baking holiday for the year. With Easter on its way in April, stay tuned for further pastry developments....