Irish Soda Bread

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for the pan and top of the loaf
3 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into half-inch pieces
1/2 cup dried currants (optional)
1 tsp caraway seeds (optional)
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk, as needed

Directions:

1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 400 F. Dust the bottom of an 8-inch round cake pan with flour.
2. Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt together into a large bowl. Add the butter and stir to coat with the flour mixture. Using a pastry blender or two knives, cut in the butter until the mixture is crumbly, with some pea-size pieces of butter. Stir in the currants and caraway seeds (if using). Stir in enough of the buttermilk to make a moist, soft dough, being sure to moisten all of the dry bits on the bottom of the bowl. Knead in the bowl just a few times to be sure the dough comes together -- this is not a smooth dough.
3. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and shape into a ball. Sprinkle the top with at least 1 tablespoon flour to give the loaf a rustic look. Transfer to the prepared pan. Using a sharp knife, cut a shallow 4-inch wide X in the top of the dough. The X will open during baking and help the loaf bake more evenly.
4. Bake until the top is deep golden brown and the bread sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom, 35 to 40 minutes. Remove from the pan. Let cool on a wire cooling rack for 5 to 10 minutes, and serve warm.

--Diane Rossen Worthington, Irish soda bread, Baltimore Sun, Tribune Content Agency, March 12, 2014. Worthington got the recipe from Karen Mitchell and Sarah Mitchell Hansen's The Model Bakery Cookbook, 2013. According to Worthington, the cookbook authors suggested adding baking powder as well as baking soda. Baking powder will cause the bread to rise better. However, Irish soda bread is called "soda" bread because it doesn't traditionally use any baking powder. The baking soda is supposed to make it rise.

I have baked Irish soda bread for Saint Patrick's Day celebrations many years ago. In the 1990's sometime, Irish soda bread began to commonly appear on the shelves of many grocery stores. I do love soda bread. Thus, I have since served it both for March Equinox and for a wee bit luck in March. Though my mother never baked soda bread, she frequently served corn beef and cabbage on March 17...all the while insisting that we were not Irish.

Much later, an uncle (my mother's older brother) told me that we did have some Irish in the family--apparently a Great Aunt on my maternal Grandfather's side. He seemed to think my mother's annual pronouncement "Why shouldn't we celebrate St. Paddy's Day even if we're not Irish!?! We celebrate Chinese New Year and we're not Chinese!" was strangely amusing in light of our genuine family history.

Family quirks aside, I've noticed that every few years March 17 falls on a weekend. In Neo-Pagan practice, the holidays are often celebrated on the weekend closest to the event on the calendar. Thus, we have sometimes been celebrating March Equinox on the same weekend as the USA obsession of the Wearing o' the Green. For me this a perfect reason to celebrate a Green Spring Equinox. The first shoots of green are often just becoming readily evident around March 17th. In fact--as a kid--since my mom firmly insisted we weren't Irish I assumed we were really wearing green to "Green Up the Earth" for Spring in Maryland. I might have been about age 8 when I came up with this notion. (Eight year old logic, don't you love it?)

Though this isn't the recipe I originally used, it seems similar to what I baked years ago.

March 12, 2014, Myth Woodling

Saint Patrick's Weekends Saturday, March 17, 1990
Friday, March 17, 1995
Sunday, March 17, 1997
Friday, March 17, 2006
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Sunday, March 17, 2013

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