Irish Soda Bread Revisited

In my last post I'd prepared a basic Irish soda bread to go with my beef stew. The bread was incredibly dense, and frankly a little flavorless. It was great for mopping up stew, but ultimately it was better suited as a trencher than as wheat bread.

Alanna at Kitchen Parade kindly dropped me an e-mail with some concerns. Over the last 2 days I've searched the internet for a good recipe and tweaked the process, baking 4 loaves in the process. I think I've finally hit the nail on the head.

There were 2 problems with the ingredients in the recipe. First, there was far too much white flour in the mix. I tried baking a loaf with a 3:1 ratio of wheat to white, and not just a 1:1. Even though that loaf turned out brick-like in consistency, the flavor was a great improvement. The second problem was that the process of kneading the dough killed any leavening provided by the baking soda. What I needed was a recipe that had baking powder in it. That way I could knead the dough for consistency without sacrificing leavening. This deviates from tradition, but it makes a huge improvement in the quality of the finished product.

After a few attempts at tweaking I found this recipe. It had a good mix of flours, as well as baking soda to perk up the loaf. But there was a little more that could be done to improve my bread.

While we were in Ireland, Jenny and I visited a traditional Irish farm at the Muckross House in County Kerry. The ladies there had a loaf of soda bread baking in every cottage, with lots of free samples. The bread there was cooked in a bastible, a sort of Irish dutch oven hung over a peat fire and topped with coals. The bread cooked inside this oven was still a bit dense, but soft and incredibly flavorful. I came across this site proposing using a mixing bowl as a simulated bastible in a conventional oven, which I thought would work well for my purposes.

I prepared two loaves, both quite a bit larger than the loaf I'd made for my stew. I'm starting to think that this is critical, since a small loaf turns into a hockey puck with even a short time in the oven. Alanna passed on her method for measuring flour, which I call the "fluff, scoop and sweep method." It's basically shaking the flour violently in a closed container to aerate the flour before measuring it in measuring cups. Call it a cleaner sifting method. My wheat flour is in a tupperware, so I just shook it in it's container before removing the lid and measuring.

I kneaded the dough per the recipe for 3-5 minutes until it softened. I was surprised that you could actually feel the dough give and turn into a bubble-gum consistency. I ended up using a bit more buttermilk than called for (1-2 extra tablespoons) to keep the dough tacky, but not so sticky that I couldn't work with it.

I baked one loaf covered (removing the cover after 30 min), and the other in the open oven. Both loaves had the same consistency, but the covered loaf rose much more beautifully. The covered loaf is on the left.

Cooking the bread covered creates a more humid environment for the baking bread, which I think keeps the crust softer and allows for more even expansion in the oven. The covered loaf was also on the top rack, which helped keep the bottom from turning rock hard. Next time, I'll cook the bread covered for the entire baking time, which I think will improve the crust. Don't forget to tap the loaf on the bottom to check doneness. It'll sound hollow like a drum.

Each loaf is a whopping 38 points, but that'll make 20 pieces easily.

The finished product was everything I hoped for - a dense, rich wheat bread that has a hearty crust and an interior that melts in your mouth. I think that the trial and effort paid off in a recipe and method that will be popular in my household for quite some time.