Irish Soda Bread

The other day my Mother-in-Law mentioned she had made sourdough bread, which got me thinking about making bread. We have a bread maker that Matt had before we got married and it’s been sitting in a closet collecting dust. So, I decided to dust it off and try using it to make some bread. Of course, there were no direction with the bread maker, because Men!

Luckily it was easy to google up the directions for the exact Pillsbury bread machine that we have. I decided that in honor of upcoming St. Patrick’s Day I would make Irish Soda Bread.

I’ve never used a bread machine before, but I figured how hard can it be, right? The machine actually does all the work for you after you place all the ingredients inside. It needs them together, rises and bakes it all by itself. You can’t get much simpler then that.

This traditional bread usually contains baking soda, yeast, flour, salt, and buttermilk, with optional additions of butter, eggs, raisins and if desired nuts. I always try to use whole wheat flour so I substituted out the white flour.

It’s also traditionally mixed and formed into a ball and placed on a baking pan with criss-crossed slits on top. Just know when using the bread machine you won’t get that same shape, but the taste is just as good you won’t notice the difference.

It’s so easy to make in the machine as you just place all ingredients inside, making sure the liquid ingredients are on the bottom. Once all ingredients are added choose the “quick bread” cycle. That’s it! The bread machine takes over and does everything for you, no baking skills needed! Once it finishes let sit for about 10 min before removing.

There’s nothing better than fresh-baked bread! You can serve it with pure Irish butter for the best experience, but any butter will do. It will be hard to not eat the entire loaf in one sitting. Also a good sign was that it was husband approved!

Here’s my recipe for this delicious Irish Soda Bread, hope you love it as much as we did!