Irish soda bread vs. Irish-American soda bread

You don’t have to be Irish to enjoy Irish soda bread. What you may not know is that traditional Irish soda bread is different from the soda bread sold in grocery stores or bakeries in anticipation of St. Patrick’s Day.

True soda bread is dense bread made with baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) as the rising agent. Soda bread became common in Ireland about the time of the potato famine, when yeast was difficult to obtain and the potato crop was ruined. Prior to the potato famine, bread would have been made with mealy potatoes as the rising agent if yeast were not available. Without yeast, or potato starch, baking soda became the substitute ingredient to make daily bread. The combination of sour milk (buttermilk) and baking soda helps the bread to raise slightly, but not exactly the same as with yeast. The sour milk in the dough contains lactic acid and reacts with the baking soda to form tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide, creating the rising action.

Soda bread was a poor man’s quick bread that was baked daily, containing simple ingredients of flour (whole wheat or white), salt, baking soda, and sour milk. The bread could have been made in a cast iron pot or skillet with a lid and cooked over a turf fire rather than in an oven, which many poor Irish farmers did not have.

Commercially made or “American” Irish soda bread is frequently a sweet bread containing yeast, sugar, raisins, and caraway seeds. Traditional Irish soda bread has neither raisins, caraway seeds, nor other dried fruits or flavoring. Raisins or caraway seeds would have been luxury items in the mid- to late-1800s and only used for special occasions by those who could afford them. Bread made with whole meal flour was referred to as “brown bread.” If raisins are added, the bread is called “spotted dog” or “railway cake.” If the recipe contains eggs, sugar, baking powder, or fat (shortening or butter), it is a cake, not bread. Most American versions of Irish soda bread found on the Internet are sweet bread, or cake by definition.

Irish soda bread is typically shaped into a round with a cross cut in the center. The cross may have had a religious significance, but it also functions as a way for the bread to ventilate, allowing the air to circulate so that the bread rises better.