Irish Soda Bread with Golden Raisins
March 11, 2018 | By Jeremy Scheck | Leave a Comment
This tender quick bread made with orange zest and buttermilk has just the suggestion of sweetness and the texture of a scone…what more could you want on this St. Patrick’s Day? The recipe makes two loaves, so I recommend IMMEDIATELY giving one away or else you will eat both in one sitting. While I like the nuttiness from the bit whole wheat flour, if you find it especially annoying to buy a whole bag just for this recipe, it’s fine to use just all purpose flour.
Adapted from Food Wishes
Irish Soda Bread with Golden Raisins
Ingredients
- 3 and 1/4 cups (407g) all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup (63g) whole wheat flour
- 4 tablespoons oats (rolled are preferred; quick are fine)
- 1 and 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1/2 stick (57g) unsalted butter, cold and chopped in small pieces
- 1 and 3/4 full fat buttermilk
- 1 egg
- 2 or 3 tablespoons honey
- Grated zest of 1 orange
- 1 and 1/3 cups dried fruit, a combination of golden raisins, currants, and cranberries is good.
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375° F, convection if you have it. Line a half–sheet pan with a silpat or parchment baking paper.
- Whisk together the flours, oats, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a large mixing bowl.
- Add in the butter, and use your fingers to rub it with the flour mixture into thin strips.
- In a large jug whisk together the buttermilk, egg, honey, and orange zest.
- Add the wet mixture and the dried fruit to the flour mixture and mix with clean hands just until no flour streaks are visible. The dough should be quite sticky.
- Scrape the dough onto a well–floured work surface. Divide in two, and form each half into a round, between 1.5" and 2" tall. Transfer both to the prepared baking sheet, let rest for 15 mins.
- Brush the tops with a dash of leftover buttermilk, and slash the tops with of both loaves with a sharp knife in the shape of a cross.
- Bake 40–45 minutes, until the loaves are deeply golden brown and sound hollow when tapped lightly on the underside.
- Let cool completely before enjoying slathered in Irish butter.
Jeremy Scheck spent high school perfecting his signature cupcakes, making quiches and coffee cake by the dozen at a local bakery, and teaching cooking demonstrations at Williams-Sonoma. As a 10th grader in 2016, he began documenting his favorite recipes on a blog called The After School Bakery. In college, Jeremy learned to make 50 gallons of ice cream in the food science lab, how to prune grape vines in the teaching vineyard, the best way to milk a cow in Northern Italy, and why film photography is an art worth saving. As a sophomore in 2020, he traded blog photos for video and became a TikTok culinary sensation. Jeremy has been featured on the Today show, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, BBC Radio, People, and Access Hollywood, among others. Jeremy is a graduate of Cornell University with a double major in Spanish and Italian, and significant coursework in food science. He lives in Brooklyn, NY. Learn more about Jeremy.