Irish Soda Bread

Ingredients

• 450 g wholemeal flour, coarse stone-ground preferred
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda, level
• 1 tsp fine salt
• 400 ml buttermilk, cold; or whole milk acidified with 1 tbsp lemon juice or white vinegar, left 5 minutes

Method

1. 1
   Heat the oven to 220 °C. Lightly flour a baking sheet. Do not prepare anything else in advance: every action from mixing onward must lead directly to the oven.
2. 2
   Combine the flour, bicarbonate of soda, and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the centre and pour in the buttermilk. Using one hand or a large fork, bring the dough together with the fewest possible strokes — it must remain shaggy and rough, not smooth. This is where the bread lives or dies: the soda-acid reaction is immediate; overmixing exhausts the CO₂ before the oven can trap it, and worked gluten produces a tough crumb the bread does not need. Stop the moment no dry flour remains.
3. 3
   Turn the dough out onto the floured sheet and pat gently into a round about 5 cm high. Do not knead. Score a deep cross from edge to edge and all the way down to the base of the dough — a shallow cross leaves the dense centre underpenetrated by heat.
4. 4
   Place immediately in the hot oven. Bake at 220 °C for 15 minutes, then reduce to 200 °C and bake a further 25 to 30 minutes. The loaf is done when it is deeply browned across the entire surface and sounds hollow when the base is tapped with a knuckle.
5. 5
   Remove from the oven and wrap the loaf immediately in a damp tea towel. Leave for 30 minutes. The trapped steam softens the thick crust and renders the crumb more supple throughout.