Irish Soda Bread

We’re all Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, so let’s all celebrate one of Ireland’s true culinary treasures — soda bread, a traditional loaf made with flour, baking soda, salt, butter and buttermilk. Simple, right? But it tastes greater than the sum of its parts, with an almost Zenlike complexity. There’s the delicate tang from the buttermilk, the rustic crunch of the crust. My challenge was to create a vegan version with all the heart and the flavor of an authentic Irish loaf, just using plants.

How to Make Vegan Irish Soda Bread

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
• Lightly oil a 9″ pie pan or cast iron skillet.
• Sift together dry ingredients. Work in softened vegan butter until just combined and the mixture has the texture of coarse crumbs. Using a wooden spoon or your hand, mix in vegan yogurt. Knead just so it all comes together, no more than a minute. Add another handful of flour if dough is sticky. Dough will be thick.
• Gently press dough into a round and place in prepared pan or skillet.  Resist urge to smooth the top. Baking turns that craggy top into a delectable crust.  Besides, Irish soda bread is rustic and not meant to be prettified. Now, be bold, and slash a cross into the top.  This ensures even baking.
• Bake for 30 minutes, until top is brown and crusty and loaf sounds hollow when tapped.  Allow to cool slightly, then slice thin.

I adapted my soda bread recipe from Myrtle Allen, maven of County Cork’s famed Ballymaloe, who seemed both amused and exasperated by this untraditional American girl trying to translate an Irish tradition. I had to mess with the recipe quite a bit to get it to taste as earthy here as it is there, but when I had it, man, I had it. Oaty, grainy, honest and nourishing was the one thing I knew I could do well. It was also full of yogurt and butter. So when I went vegan, I said goodbye. For a while. Thank goddess, the innovations in plantbased dairy — which we can officially legally call milk and butter — meant I could bring back a beloved friend.

Soda bread is a quick bread.  It’s so quick and easy that many Irish households make it fresh every day.  There’s no yeast, so there’s no aggravation.

Buttermilk, or in this case, plain vegan yogurt contains lactic acid, which reacts with the baking soda to form tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide, giving the bread some lift.

In Ireland, soda bread is made with unbleached flour, maybe with a small scoop of oats. In  America, most commercial flour, even whole In wheat flour, has already been so processed, to get that true grainy goodness, it helps to supplement with other whole grains. That’s why I add toasted wheat germ and oatmeal.

Even Ballymaloe has tweaked its original recipe as it’s been passed from the hand of Myrtle Allen to her daughter-in-law Darina Allen and now to Rachel Allen.

Using a mixture of grains and flours not only produces something closer to an authentic brown soda bread loaf, it’s kitchen wisdom.  Historically, wheat was both expensive and hard to get. Combining it with oats or other grains is how households have saved money and stretched wheat further for generations.  And you know me, I’m always eager to get more whole grains in you.

Whole wheat flour, rye flour and cornmeal come together sweetly with my recipe for Boston brown bread.

American versions of soda bread are often studded with fruit and sweetened with sugar.  In fact, there are times I can’t resist doing so, as well.

Wartime baked goods often made more with less.

Sometimes the filler isn’t another grain, it can be um, wood. In difficult times, bakers have used sawdust as fillers.

Artur Cisar-Erlach, author of The Flavor of Wood, makes sawdust bread too, but for a different reason, to help us appreciate the integral role of wood in our food and in our lives. But Artur isn’t talking commercial sawdust.  He’s talking about sawing a limb from a pine tree, which gives the loaf a fresh piney, resiny note.  I confess I haven’t made this recipe, but if you do, I’d love to know your results.

In the meantime, Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everyone,  Erin go bragh.

Irish Soda Bread

My challenge: to create a vegan version of soda bread with all the heart and the flavor of an authentic Irish loaf, just using plants.

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Ingredients

  

• 1-1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour work in more if necessary
• 1 cup whole wheat flour the grainier the better
• 1/2 cup oatmeal not instant
• 1/4 cup toasted wheat germ
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 4 tablespoon 1/2 stick vegan butter, softened
• 1-1/3 cups unsweetened vegan plain yogurt

Instructions

 

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
• Lightly oil a 9″ pie pan or cast iron skillet.
• Sift together dry ingredients. Work in softened vegan butter until just combined and the mixture has the texture of coarse crumbs. Using a wooden spoon or your hand, mix in vegan yogurt. Knead just so it all comes together, no more than a minute. Add another handful of flour if dough is sticky. Dough will be thick.
• Gently press dough into a round and place in prepared pan or skillet. Resist urge to smooth the top. Baking turns that craggy top into a delectable crust. Besides, Irish soda bread is rustic and not meant to be prettified. Now, be bold, and slash a cross into the top. This ensures even baking.
• Bake for 30 minutes, until top is brown and crusty and loaf sounds hollow when tapped. Allow to cool slightly, then slice thin.

Thank you for reading my vegan stories and plant-based recipes. I sincerely love to connect with listeners and would like to hear your feedback, takeaways, “ah-ha!” moments, etc in the comments.

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