Irish Soda Bread With Raisons
Over the years I’ve collected more than a dozen soda bread recipes and tried most of them for our annual St. Patrick’s dinners. The basic ingredients of soda bread are flour, baking soda and buttermilk. The addition of eggs, butter, milk, raisins, caraway, salt, sugar, baking powder, sour cream, vinegar, lemon, oats or bran to the basic recipe makes loaves unique to your family’s tastes.

This is a sweet bread, full of raisins, with vanilla, bran and oats, and a sweet, shiny crust from the addition of an egg yolk wash sprinkled with more sugar. This certainly isn’t a plain traditional loaf, but we love it. This is an easy bread to make, despite all the steps, which I’ve listed for you. Get all your ingredients and all your baking tools together before you start. The hardest part is taking it out when it’s done – not too early, not too late. The next hardest part is letting it cool before eating it, when the kitchen is full of the delicious aroma. Hard to resist!

Directions:

• Set out your measuring cups and measuring spoons, a small glass with ice in it (see step 9) and three bowls: a large, a medium, and a small one. (My Pyrex set of nesting bowls is perfect for this!)
• (Small bowl): Put the raisins in a heat-proof bowl and barely cover with Irish whisky. Put into microwave and heat 1-2 minutes. Take it out before it boils and set aside to cool.
• Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or waxed paper.
• (Large bowl): Mix flour, brown sugar, salt, and baking powder together until well combined.
• Using a pastry cutter or your fingers, cut in butter, rubbing together until the butter is incorporated into the flour.
• Add the oatmeal or bran and caraway seeds to the flour mixture and mix together. You can also do this flour-butter mixing in a food processor; pulse a few times until a sandy consistency and then add the oats or bran and caraway seeds, pulse again once or twice, then transfer into the large bowl.
• Strain whisky from the raisins into the cup of ice you’ve prepared. This is to drink while the bread is baking.
• Mix in raisins gently into the flour mix.
• (Medium bowl): With a fork, whisk together the buttermilk and egg, then add the baking soda and vanilla and whisk again.
• Pour the buttermilk mixture into the flour mixture and stir with your fork, just until most of the liquid is incorporated. Like pancake batter, easy does it! – it doesn’t have to be a smooth batter at this point.
• Dump the whole bowl of dough onto a lightly flour-dusted surface.
• Gently bring in all the dough and flour together, kneading very gently to shape the mixture into a round loaf, higher than it is wide, as it will spread out. If you need to add more flour because it’s too wet, or buttermilk because it’s too dry, do it now, spoonful at a time. Work it in gently.
• Transfer the loaf to the baking sheet with parchment or wax paper.
• In the small bowl that had raisins in it – don’t bother to rinse it: Beat the egg yolks and cream or water together. (Freeze the egg whites for another use.)
• With a sharp knife, cut a slash about 1 inch deep into the top of the loaf, rinse the knife, then cut another 1-inch slash across the first, making the traditional cross on the bread.
• With a pastry brush, brush the egg wash heavily over the loaf.
• Sprinkle with demerara or regular sugar.
• Put the baking sheet in the hot oven and bake about an hour, rotating halfway through. After an hour, stick a steak knife or wooden skewer into the top of the loaf to see if it’s done (no batter will be on the knife). Leave it in another 10 minutes or more until the knife comes out clean.
• Remove from oven. and put on a wire rack or folded towel to cool.
• The loaf will be a golden brown and smell lovely, but don’t cut into it until it cools – an hour or so, because it will be crumbly and fall apart.

Notes:
I’ve noticed that there is very little difference after this bread is baked if the raisins have been plumped with whiskey or water – it’s all in the mind at that point. So use water, cider, brandy, whatever you have to plump the raisins, and it’s all fine.

• Enjoy, or freeze for later. This freezes and toasts so well that often I will make two just to have soda bread toast for breakfast long after the Irish dinner.
• Grateful Dead’s Touch of Grey and Box of Rain are good songs to listen to while making this bread. Gentle and melodic, follow the rhythm while you stir the ingredients together and knead the bread. Goes well with the whiskey.
• I have added thin strips of candied ginger, fennel seed, or chocolate bits, almond extract, orange or lemon zest or cinnamon, cardamom, or other sweet spices to soda bread for variety when making this bread to toast (or French toast) for breakfast. For a savory bread, add parmesan and herbs, like basil or parsley. Try this bread with sun-dried tomatoes and pesto – really good! This is a great recipe to play around with.