I'll be honest with you, I do not like Irish soda bread. I don't get why it's a thing. I accept that it IS a thing, but I don't know why. Maybe I just haven't ever had good Irish soda bread? What I have had, has been like a big, somewhat doughy Saltine cracker with raisins in it. Um, no thanks?
It may simply be that I have never deployed it correctly, I can see how Irish soda bread would be a good accompaniment to stew or something else with a lot of sauce. Like a biscuit in Southern cuisine. Use it to mop up the mess. You would want a tough and bland biscuit for that duty, so that it doesn't get soggy or fall apart.
It also seems that Irish soda bread goes stale quickly. Simply Recipes advises that you use it within a day or two of baking it, and that it is best when fresh baked, either warm or toasted. I have to begrudgingly admit, that sounds pretty good. I might be able to get behind it (if I wasn't allergic to wheat).
Soda bread is made by using sodium bicarbonate as a leavening agent instead of yeast. When you make regular yeast bread, the yeast exhales carbon dioxide, which is what bubbles into the dough and makes it rise and turn fluffy. Sodium bicarbonate does the same thing when exposed to an acid, which is why soda bread recipes include an acidic ingredient (usually buttermilk).
However, it is also why soda bread is so bland. A lot of the flavor of bread comes from the yeast, which you don't realize until you eat some bread that was made without it.
Out of all the St. Patrick's Day traditions, this is the one I will definitely pass on, sorry!
Image courtesy Flickr/elana's pantry
1 comments