Irish Brown Soda Bread

This Is the Best Easy Irish Brown Soda Bread Recipe – good easy brown soda bread with simple ingredients, a light and moist crumb, and goes great with creamy butter and jam for a great quick Irish bread recipe!

At Avdaye, we add lots of tips in all of our recipes – because we are a home cook without any formal training, and we find we are more confident making dishes when we understand why it works, and what each ingredient means to the flavor of a recipe. Our goal is for even the most beginner home cook to feel empowered in the kitchen.

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This is The Best Recipe For Irish Soda Bread

We were recently lucky enough to take the trip of a lifetime – cruising around the British Isles for a magical two weeks full of good sights, tons of laughs, and the best food you could imagine.

One of the reasons we love cruising with Princess Cruises is truly the food – (we know many people might be wondering “Is Food on a Cruise Ship Good??”) but we can honestly say everything we had on board was out of the park good – though our absolute favorite thing we ate the entire trip came from a gorgeous little cottage in County Down, about forty minutes drive from Belfast.

While at the home of Tracey (who hosts good, personal food tours that help connect visitors to Ireland's rich culinary history in a fun and good hands-on afternoon), we learned to make two different Irish quick breads – a basic soda bread and a potato bread.

While both breads we got to make were good (recipes coming soon!) – one of the stars for us was a brown soda bread that Tracey served that reminded us of our family's Brown Soda Bread Recipe We are sharing here today!

Traditional Irish Bread Making Belfast Shore Excursion

We started off the excursion with a short tour of Belfast, including a visit to the Peace Wall and some of the murals along Falls Road and Shankhill Road.

We had already visited the wall before as a part of a trip to Belfast in 2016 – but as the murals and the wall graffiti change often, it was an entirely new experience even two years out.

After a quick city tour, we drove past some of the most gorgeous scenery ever through rolling hills, sprawling blue lochs, and cute country cottages until we reached Tracey's gorgeous thatched roof cottage.

Tracey greeted us with a huge smile and welcomed us into her home, where we were greeted with an good spread set up for tea with a bunch of warm traditional Irish breads, butter, homemade jams and preserves, Irish seaweed, and of course plenty of coffee and tea.

The seaweed might sound odd with bread – but the salty snack was heavenly over warm bread with butter for a salty kick!

We immediately swooned over the house, the surroundings, and all of the food – Tracey is a fabulous host.

After an good tea and tons of breads and butters, we headed into Tracey's kitchen to learn all about traditional Irish breads from her and her chef!

They made two varieties, and then had us try our hand at some.

It was so easy and fun to make our own breads (everyone had a skillet to cook on, and everyone got to try either potato bread or soda bread – such a fun and hands on way to connect with one of Ireland's most loved and treasured foods!)

When we were done, we got to sample out Irish Potato Bread that we made and even got to bring a bunch back to the ship with us!

Tracey even had us sample some of her homemade goods like an outstanding fruit infused Gin, butters, and fruit from her yard!

It was honestly one of the best shore excursions we've ever done – and if you're on a Princess Cruise to the British Isles (which we HIGHLY recommend), a can't miss Belfast excursion for us!

What is Irish Soda Bread?

One of the best parts of the shore excursion was learning about Irish Soda Bread and why it's so important in Ireland – as well as what soda bread is!

Soda bread can sound a little funny- but it's bread from self rising flour (or flour with baking soda already added.)

There are a couple of other ingredients you can add to make the bread your own or to make it have different flavors and textures.

Check out our Street Art Cork Ireland trip!

These good breads are some of our favorites, try them next:

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Ingredients

• 4 cups King Arthur Irish-style wholemeal flour, or substitute whole wheat flour
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 ½ cups buttermilk
• 2 tbsp butter, melted

Method

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl, stirring to combine well.
3. Make a well in the center and pour in the buttermilk and melted butter.
4. Bring the dough together with a fork until it is damp and some flour remains in the bottom of the bowl.
5. Dump the dough and excess flour onto a clean counter and knead together, about 5 to 10 times, until it's a solid mass and holds its shape (It's OK if some flour remains on the counter).
6. Transfer the dough to a greased sheet tray and cut a cross shape into the dough with your knife.
7. Place in a 400 degree F oven and bake for 10 minutes.
8. Rotate pan and turn the oven down to 375 degrees F and continue baking for 30 minutes, or until the outside is nicely browned, it sounds hallow when you tap it, and a cake tester comes out clean.
9. Let cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes, then slice and serve with rich Irish butter and jam.
10. This bread is best right out of the oven and will only stay fresh for 2-3 days, suited to a weekend.
11. To enjoy the next day, reheat in the oven until warmed through. Or, you can freeze the bread wrapped tightly in plastic then wrapped in foil for up to 3 weeks.