Best Soda Breads For St PatrickÂs Day Martha Rose Shulman Recipes

IRISH SODA SCONES

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, granulated sugar, and salt.
• Cut butter into small pieces; work into flour mixture with your fingers or a pastry cutter until dough resembles coarse meal. Add currants, caraway seeds, and buttermilk; stir until just combined.
• Scoop 1/3 cup-size mounds of dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet, spaced 3 inches apart. Bake until bottoms are golden, 15 to 20 minutes. Let cool completely on sheet.
• Meanwhile, combine confectioners' sugar, milk, and orange zest. Drizzle over scones; serve.

FOOLPROOF IRISH SODA BREAD

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment. Mix milk and vinegar in a small bowl, and let stand until thickened, about 5 minutes.
• Whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in a large bowl. Cut in unsalted butter with a pastry cutter or 2 knives until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add bran, caraway seeds, and raisins; stir to distribute.
• Pour milk mixture into flour mixture; stir until dough just holds together but is still sticky. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface. Pat and press the dough gently into a round, dome-shaped loaf, about 7 inches in diameter. Transfer to prepared sheet.
• Lightly dust top of loaf with flour. With a sharp knife, cut an X into the top, 3/4 inch deep. Bake, rotating halfway through, until loaf is golden brown and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean, about 1 hour, 10 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack. Soda bread is best eaten the day it is made; serve with salted butter.

PULL APART SODA BREAD

Steps:

• Start with our basic soda-bread recipe. After turning out the dough on a lightly floured surface, divide it into 16 equal pieces and, with floured hands, roll each into a ball. Transfer the balls to a parchment-lined baking sheet in 4 rows of 4, making sure each dough ball is touching the ones around it. With the tip of a paring knife, cut a 1/4-inch-deep X on each ball. Because the pull-apart rolls are smaller than a full loaf, the baking time is cut in half. Cool to room temperature before serving with plenty of salted Irish butter.

IRISH BROWN SODA BREAD

Steps:

• Heat oven to 425 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, sift together the whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, salt and baking soda. Use your fingertips to work the butter into the flour mixture.
• In a small bowl, beat the egg and buttermilk together. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir to combine with a wooden spoon. Dough should be soft but not sticky; add a bit more all-purpose flour if necessary.
• Put dough on a lightly floured board and knead together gently, just enough to form a round loaf. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and cut a deep cross on top.
• Bake for 15 minutes, then turn heat to 400 degrees and bake for 30 minutes more, until nicely browned. To tell whether it's done, thump the bottom of the loaf with your fingertips; it should sound hollow. Remove from baking sheet and cool on a rack. Let cool to room temperature before slicing, if possible.

WHOLE WHEAT SODA BREAD WITH RAISINS (SPOTTED DOG)

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a sheet pan with parchment. In a large bowl, mix together flours, soda, salt and brown sugar. Swish mixture around with your hands to distribute salt and soda through the bread. Add raisins and toss mixture together to coat raisins with flour.
• Beat egg and place in a measuring cup. Add buttermilk; the liquid in the cup should measure about 1 3/4 cups.
• Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture. Pour egg/buttermilk mixture into the well. Working from the center of the bowl in concentric clockwise circles, with fingers outstretched, stir buttermilk mixture into flour mixture. (You can use a rubber spatula instead if you don't like getting dough on your hands.) This should take about a half a minute at most. Dough will be sticky and ragged.
• Dust your work surface with flour, clean and dry your hands and dust with flour. Scrape out dough and very quickly and gently pat it into a 1 1/2- to 2-inch-high round and tuck the bottom edges under. (Alternatively, place in a lightly buttered 10-inch round cake pan.) Place on parchment-covered baking sheet. Moisten a knife and cut a deep cross across top of bread.
• Place in oven and immediately turn the heat down to 400 degrees. Bake 40 minutes, until the loaf is dark brown and makes a hollow sound when tapped. Remove from oven, wrap loosely in a kitchen towel (to soften the crust) and place on a rack to cool.

BROWN SODA BREAD WITH OATS

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 2 1/2-inch bread pan.
• In a large bowl, mix together flours, steel-cut oats, rolled oats, brown sugar, salt and sifted baking soda. Mix well with your hands.
• Make a well in the center of flour mixture. Pour in buttermilk. Working from the center of the bowl in concentric clockwise circles, with fingers outstretched, stir buttermilk into flour mixture. (You can use a rubber spatula instead if you don't like getting dough on your hands.) This should take about a half a minute at most. Dough will be quite moist. Use a rubber spatula to scrape into bread pan and smooth out the dough to fill pan evenly ( the pan will be filled only about halfway.)
• Place in the oven and bake 40 minutes, until dark brown and a tester inserted comes out clean. Remove from pan and cool on a rack.