St. Patrick's Soda Bread

Had a lovely visit from an angel of Ireland, and she left me with a recipe for Soda Bread from her great-great-grandmother Margaret! This is an old world recipe and I will attempt to make the measurements usable, but you must adjust quantities to help dough be right consistency. These are measurements for small a loaf, but quantities can be doubled to make a larger loaf.

Preheat Oven to 400 degrees, approximately.

1/3 cup white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 Tsp. Baking soda
1/2 Tsp. Salt
1 egg,
1/3 cup butter milk

In a large mixing bowl, mix dry items: white flour, whole wheat flour, baking soda, and salt, mixing with your bare hands for 30 seconds.
Next mix egg into butter milk into measuring cup.

Now very gently and slowly mix the fluid into the dry mix, stirring with fork or spoon (see below).



The mixture must have a tacky texture. Final mixture should be moist, but not too hard to knead with your hands on a flat surface. Make sure the flat surface has flour so that dough does not stick. Knead dough with palm of your hands and by folding over several times, until there are few air bubbles appearing.

Now mold dough into a rounded bread loaf shape with hands (see below). Take a knife and make a cross on top and some small indentations like dimples on top of loaf.



Bake for 45 minutes approximately.
Check bread by tapping on the bottom with knuckles, loaf should have a hollow sound, like a drum top. The top should be nice and golden.

Enjoy with real butter & Happy St.Patrick's Day!