In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I’m reviewing a recipe for Irish Soda Bread. There are a lot of different recipes for this bread online, some with raisins and nuts, others with only three or four ingredients. I picked this recipe based on the simplicity of the ingredients, the ease of preparation and the huge list of positive reviews on the recipe online.
I was a little skeptical about how this recipe would turn out because all the pictures I found were of lumpy, dusty, dry looking loaves of bread. But once I tried it, I changed my mind. My bread was lumpy, a little less dusty, but oh so delicious. This bread isn’t made with yeast, instead it uses a whole tablespoon of baking powder and a teaspoon of baking soda as the leavening agents. This isn’t a bread to eat with a sandwich, it’s a little thicker and moister than regular breads. It’s really good toasted up with some strawberry jelly or honey.
Ease of preparation:
HHHHH
This recipe comes together really fast. Pour all the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, then pour in a pan and bake.
Taste: HHHH
There’s one-third of a cup of sugar in the recipe and it gives the bread a subtly sweet taste. The texture is really dense and moist like banana or pumpkin bread. The top layer is crunchy and pleasantly brown. If you like English muffins, bagels or buttermilk biscuits, you’ll probably enjoy this bread.
Leftover potential: HH
This recipe only makes one 5-by-7 loaf of bread, which is simply not enough, as you’ll know once you’ve tasted the bread. You could easily and cheaply, double this recipe to make an extra loaf.
Recipe courtesy of Karin Christian on allrecipes.com.
Lauren Gocken is a senior in secondary education. Please send comments to edge@kstatecollegian.com.