Traditional Irish Soda Bread, dotted with raisins. Slightly sweet, crunchy on the outside and dense and soft on the inside. Makes a terrific accompaniment to your favorite soups, stews, and St. Patrick’s Day meals!

Irish Soda Bread is a simple to make bread that requires no rise time at all. It’s a somewhat sweet white bread with a crusty exterior, many times studded with raisins or even caraway seeds. It’s made with easy to find ingredients like flour, sugar, baking soda, and baking powder and buttermilk.

Soda bread gets its name from the fact that baking soda, or “bread soda” as it’s called in Irland, is used as the leavening ingredient, or what makes it rise.

It is a terrific accompaniment to the traditional Corned Beef & Cabbage meal, of course. But I really like it served up warm next to a bowl of creamy soup, like this Creamy Corned Beef & Cabbage Soup you see here.

I am on the Food Committee at our church. We belong to St. Patrick’s Parish, so every year St. Patrick’s Day is a big deal.

Every year, they host a dinner at church, and this year they were looking for people to make Irish Soda bread.

When this post was originally written, I hadn’t really baked much bread, other than Banana Bread. But I thought I would give it a whirl. I like that this recipe has a bit of sweetness to it, from the small amount of sugar, as well as the raisins. I love raisins!

Over the years of making this soda bread, I have used both regular raisins, as well as golden raisins. Whatever you have on hand.

Irish Soda Bread - An Affair from the Heart

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Before you go, pin this recipe to your favorite Pinterest board to make it easier to find when you feel like baking!

Preparing Irish Soda Bread

As I mentioned, this Irish Soda Bread recipe is super easy to make. You don’t have to be a bread baker to make it.

Make sure to sift your dry ingredients into the bowl to start, then make a “well” in the middle of the dry ingredients.

Add in the raisins, then the buttermilk and mix to combine. The dough is sticky.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board, and knead about 10 times. Don’t over knead.

Form into a circle and place it in a parchment-lined cake pan. Score an “X” in the top with a knife, and bake.

Crunchy on the outside and dense and soft in the middle. Slather it with butter, add jam or honey if you desire. It’s amazing toasted, too!

Simple Buttermilk Substitute

This soda bread recipe calls for buttermilk. I don’t know about you, but I don’t keep it on hand.

I use it in a handful of recipes, but not enough to warrant me buying a quart of it. So, I make my own Buttermilk Substitute.

Cake Flour Substitute

My Irish Soda Bread recipe also calls for cake flour. Again, if you don’t find yourself using lots of cake flour, it may go bad before you actually get to use it. So make your own!

In the notes of the printable recipe card below, I have added the substitution ratios of all-purpose flour to corn starch to make your own cake flour, if you don’t have any on hand.

I have oodles of St. Patrick’s Day Recipes as well as Bread Recipes here on my blog, stay a while and give them a browse, won’t you?

Let’s get to this quick and simple Irish Soda Bread with Raisins recipe! You’ll be noshing on warm bread in just over an hour!

Yield: 1 loaf bread

Irish Soda Bread

Name: Irish Soda Bread
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 1 h 5 min
Total time: 1 h 10 min
Yield: 1
Cuisine: Irish
Ingredients: 3 cups sifted cake flour *; 3 Tablespoons of sugar; 1/2 teaspoon baking soda; 1/2 teaspoon baking powder; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 cup raisins, regular or golden are fine; 1 1/3 cup of buttermilk **

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 1 hour 5 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 10 minutes

Ingredients

3 cups sifted cake flour *
3 Tablespoons of sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup raisins, regular or golden are fine
1 1/3 cup of buttermilk **

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9-inch cake pan with parchment paper.
Sift all of the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Form a "well" in the center of the flour mixture.
Add raisins and buttermilk, and combine. The dough is STICKY.
Turn dough onto a lightly floured board and knead about 10 times. Don’t over knead.
Form dough into a circle, and place in prepared pan. Score an “X” in the top with a knife.
Bake 60-65 minutes.
Cool slightly before slicing.

Notes

* If you don't have cake flour, you can substitute all-purpose flour by removing 6 Tablespoons of flour from the 3 cups, and adding in 6 Tablespoons of corn starch for this recipe.

** If you don't have buttermilk on hand, make your own using whole milk and either lemon juice or vinegar. Buttermilk Substitute Recipe.

Bread WILL NOT KEEP for long. Consume bread within 1-2 days.

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

12 slices

Serving Size:

1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 186Total Fat: 1gSaturated Fat: 0gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 0gCholesterol: 1mgSodium: 303mgCarbohydrates: 41gFiber: 1gSugar: 12gProtein: 4g

Nutrition isn't guaranteed accurate.

This post was originally published in March of 2013 and was updated in March of 2020 to upgrade user experience. Recipe from Green Eggs and Spam.

If you make this recipe, I’d love to know! Snap a picture, share the photo on social media with the hashtag #AnAffairFromTheHeart – I’d love to see what you made! – Michaela

Comments

Laurie Alves says

March 17, 2013 at 3:33 am

Absolutely Beautiful! Wish I was a Bread person. I’m just not that talented! You Rock!!! *pinned it Again*!

- Michaela says
  
  March 17, 2013 at 1:29 pm
  
  Laurie, I am not a “bread person” either when it comes to making it. (eating it yes!! ) This was really EASY trust me. My 10 year old made one by herself!!
  
Amy Chung says

March 10, 2020 at 8:35 pm

I absolutely love bread that is crunchy/hard on the outside and oh so soft on the inside! Would love to try this recipe. Oh….and that corned beef recipe is also looking mighty good!

Whitney says

March 10, 2020 at 10:02 pm

How funny, I too have never made bread other than banana bread but I do LOVE soda bread and this recipe looks easy enough to try!

Jere Cassidy says

March 10, 2020 at 11:04 pm

Yum, we love this bread and love the raisins in it. Nothing better than have such simple ingredients to make an easy recipe.

SHANIKA says

March 11, 2020 at 1:12 am

This Soda Bread looks amazing! I’ve never tried making this, but I could only imagine how delicious the flavors are!

Veena Azmanov says

March 11, 2020 at 1:44 am

Delicious Bread. I love the sweetness and raisin toppings on it. I can have it at every meal and with all my favorite dishes too.

Noelle says

March 13, 2020 at 2:42 pm

I had never tried a soda bread before but I really liked the flavor! Saving to make again 🙂

Carrie Robinson says

March 13, 2020 at 2:59 pm

Such a classic to make for St. Patrick’s Day! 🙂

Beth Neels says

March 13, 2020 at 3:39 pm

Such a delicious bread! I had never tried it and you made it really easy to follow your directions! Thanks for a great recipe!

Anita says

March 13, 2020 at 5:45 pm

One of the easiest bread recipe, and really lovely and delicious. I can tell I’ll be baking this often. 🙂

Irish Soda Bread

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