Irish soda bread
BY: ANDREA ALDEN
Irish Soda Bread is a recipe that is much easier than you think. I even did something wrong and this recipe STILL made such a nice bread that I made another one (or two). There's nothing better than warm soda bread from the grill or from your Napoleon pizza stone. Serve the fresh Irish soda bread with butter and homemade jam or eat it with the leftovers of a delicious Dublin coddle (stew with potatoes, bacon and sausages) or Irish beef stew. This is definitely the best way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. I know you're wondering how I could have gone wrong with this recipe. Well, I bought Greek yogurt when I was shopping for this recipe. Yogurt is yogurt, right? No! Greek yogurt is thick, while regular yogurt is much runnier. So while I mixed the wet and dry ingredients together, I ended up with an irregular, flour-covered kind of yogurt ball. I had to knead the dough with my hands! I was worried. It was said that you should knead this dough a maximum of 20 times. Well, I kneaded the dough with my hands until I had a sticky ball of dough. I then kneaded it on a floured work surface about 10 times until the dough was completely mixed. When I took my beautiful, oven-hot bread off the pizza stone, let it cool enough to cut, and then bit into the first piece, it tasted heavenly. The recipe is surprisingly forgiving of errors.
INGREDIENTS
- 875 g flour + some additional flour for dusting
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 875 g wholemeal flour
- 3 3/4 cups (1 cup of 908 g each) natural yogurt
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tbsp liquid honey
PREPARATION
- Place the pizza stone on the grill and preheat the two outer burners to approx. 190 °C. Leave out the two inner burners between which the stone lies.
- Sift the flour, baking soda and baking powder together. Add salt and wholemeal flour and stir ingredients with a fork or spoon. In a separate bowl, mix the yogurt with the oil and honey.
- Add the yoghurt mixture to the dry ingredients and carefully mix everything together with a wooden spoon. If you bought Greek yogurt, you will need to mix everything together with your hands. Do this carefully, i.e. h. press the ingredients together, but do not knead them.
- Divide the dough into two equal parts. You can use a kitchen scale if necessary. However, I did it by eye and it worked perfectly.
- Flour the work surface and knead each half of the dough approx. 10-20 times and shape into bread balls. Using a knife, score both loaves of bread deeply on the top with an “X”.
- Flour the preheated pizza stone directly on the grill and roll one or both loaves of bread in the flour. If you don't have a pizza stone, use a floured dough pan (one for each loaf of bread) and don't worry about non-stick residue, just flour the pan. I used a dough pan and a stone and both loaves turned out perfectly.
- Bake 45 to 60 minutes until the outside of the bread is golden brown and crispy.
- Take the bread from the grill and leave the pizza stone on the grill to cool down. Let the bread cool on a rack until it is ready to serve or at least cool enough to handle with your bare hands.
- Serve with butter, jam, your favorite stews and soups.
Since I first made this recipe, I have made Irish Soda Bread two more times. (That was just 4 days ago, folks!!) Irish Soda Bread is delicious, extremely hearty, and way too easy to make. If you use one of Napoleon's pizza stones, the base will definitely be crispy and the bread will come out evenly. Read my article if you are looking for tips and tricks for using the Napoleon pizza stone.
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