Whole-Wheat Irish Soda Bread

Recipe courtesy EatingWell.com

Rated: 4 stars out of 5Rate itRead users' reviews (26)

RECIPE
COMMENTS & REVIEWS(26)

Cook Time:
1 hr 20 min
Level:
Easy
Yield:
2-pound loaf (12 slices)

Times:

Prep: 10 min
Inactive Prep: --
Cook: 1 hr 20 min
Total:: 1 hr 30 min

Recipe Tools:

Select a Card Size

Add To My Recipe Box

Success

This recipe was added to your Folder_Name folder.

Do not show this message again

Add To My Recipe Box

Please sign in to add this recipe to your Recipe Box.

Ingredients

2 cups whole-wheat flour
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 cups buttermilk

Directions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Coat a baking sheet with cooking spray and sprinkle with a little flour.

Whisk whole-wheat flour, all-purpose flour, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the center and pour in buttermilk. Using one hand, stir in full circles (starting in the center of the bowl working toward the outside of the bowl) until all the flour is incorporated. The dough should be soft but not too wet and sticky. When it all comes together, in a matter of seconds, turn it out onto a well-floured surface. Clean dough off your hand.

Pat and roll the dough gently with floury hands, just enough to tidy it up and give it a round shape. Flip over and flatten slightly to about 2 inches. Transfer the loaf to the prepared baking sheet. Mark with a deep cross using a serrated knife and prick each of the four quadrants.

Bake the bread for 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 400° and continue to bake until the loaf is brown on top and sounds hollow when tapped, 30 to 35 minutes more. Transfer the loaf to a wire rack and let cool for about 30 minutes.

Next Recipe

More recipes? Try these recommendations:

Similar Recipe

Glazed Chocolate-Pumpkin Bundt Cake

Picture of Whole-Wheat Irish Soda Bread Recipe

Photo: Whole-Wheat Irish Soda Bread

Similar Recipes

Recipes Like This

All About…

Recipe Collections

Showing 1-10 of 32

View all 32 Side Dish Collections

Comments & Reviews

recipe Whole-Wheat Irish Soda Bread
Audrey Princeton, NJ 04-21-2009
Flag

DE-lish!
Rated: 5 stars out of 5

This bread came out perfectly! I added a handful of dried currants, and didn't change anything to the temperature or timing.... I haven't been able to stop slathering it with salted butter. And the measurements are so simple, it's easy to memorize. This will be my go-to quick bread from now on!Read more
recipe Whole-Wheat Irish Soda Bread
Megan San Francisco, CA 04-18-2009
Flag

Here are a few hints...
Rated: 5 stars out of 5

I've made this bread three times now and it's been delicious each time. I noticed not everyone has had the same experience... so I thought I'd offer a few hints. 1. DON'T SIFT THE FLOUR! A few more experienced people have noted that their dough was more like batter. My guess is they sifted the flour before measuring out the four cups, a task that can dramatically change the volume and therefore the actual amount used. 2. WEAR DISPOSABLE GLOVES! Yep, the dough's sticky, however mixing, shaping and transferring the dough as well as clean up is way easier if you wear disposable food prep gloves. You can purchase them at Costco. (And they're great for handling raw meat!) 3. DON'T SHOVE IT AND FORGET IT! The length of time suggested in the recipe doesn't work for me. I'd guess this is the same problem faced by the commenter who noted her bread came out dry. So assess the doneness of the bread mid way through to make sure your bread doesn't come out the same way. I added 1 cup of rehydrated raisins to the recipe and found that this was the best timing and temp to make sure the bread comes out golden on the outside (without burned raisins studding the top) and perfectly done on the inside: Turn the oven to 450. When it's reached the correct temp, put the bread in and immediately turn the oven down to 400. Bake for 40 mins checking doneness midway. Make sure to open the oven as little as possible as it will lower the temp inside. So that's about it. It's a delicious recipe and super easy. Hope this helped make it even easier.Read more
recipe Whole-Wheat Irish Soda Bread
jason Jersey City, NJ 04-01-2009
Flag

Quick and Easy for this Guy
Rated: 5 stars out of 5

I first tried this for St Patrick's day. Never baked bread, cooked corned beef or much of anything else outside of eggs,... burgers and I do make some great breakfast potatoes. So this looked easy and like something that if executed properly would impress- and it did! I'm making it again tonight because I really enjoyed it. I don't have much baking experience but from what I do know I would mention to those that thought the bread was too dense that Baking Soda reacts with the buttermilk right away, so be sure to mix it up and get it in the oven as I'm pretty sure the CO2 formation is what makes the bread rise. If you wait too long you may exhaust that reaction and thus have thicker bread. This time I'm adding raisins and flax seeds to vary it a little. You should've seen the look on my girlfriends face when she saw I made bread- and then when she actually liked it. Priceless!Read more
recipe Whole-Wheat Irish Soda Bread
Margaret Buffalo, NY 04-01-2009
Flag

Excellent Recipe for Brown Soda Bread
Rated: 5 stars out of 5

Having been born in Ireland and taught how to make this bread by both my Mother and Father, I consider this receipe to be... excellent. Don't pour the buttermilk in all at once, but put in about 2/3 cup first and then keep adding and mixing. Those individuals (even if excellent cooks and bakers) obviously used too much buttermilk. Brown soda bread is supposed to be used with soup, or better yet, with butter and and a hunk of cheese. Yum! Yum! Margot HudsonRead more
recipe Whole-Wheat Irish Soda Bread
BRUCE tallahassee, FL 04-01-2009
Flag

Came out great
Rated: 5 stars out of 5

Reading the down-grading reviews where they say it's "batter" My first impulse is to say "they're not bakers" but they both... clearly state they are. So I'm sure they're using different measures for their dry and wet ingredients. Came out great for me. A more wholesome Irish Soda bread! To those that are looking for "light and fluffy" I always thought that it was to be a more dense, "hearty" bread able to be made cheap for the Irish working class. Give it another try, please!Read more
recipe Whole-Wheat Irish Soda Bread
Melanie Brunswick, ME 03-25-2009
Flag

Confused
Rated: 2 stars out of 5

I experienced the exact same problem as Pamela. I had to add nearly two cups of ADDITIONAL flour just to take it from batter... to (extremely sticky) dough. I followed the recipe precisely, and I'm a relatively experienced baker, so I can't figure out what went wrong. I also found that it was done after 32 minutes (20 @ 450 + 12 @ 400). I haven't tasted it yet so I can't fairly give it only one star, but it would have been nice to see more detailed instructions in the recipe (in particular, what to do if you get batter and not dough).Read more