Irish Soda Bread | Nigel’s Lazy Loaf

Nigel Slater calls this bread his lazy loaf, I’ll rather call it the Irish soda bread. Although there are only four to five ingredients involved, I don’t consider the recipe easy or lazy. Let me explain why.

Quite a few years back before I got serious about making bread, I attempted to make this exact same bread. Somehow the bread turned out to be a rock. I was humbled and clueless, thinking that there was no easier bread to bake than the Irish soda bread. To make a long story short, I didn’t revisit the soda bread for years after that.

Hundreds of loaves later, I’ve become a more confident and instinctual baker. Over the years, I have gained a more nuanced understanding of the different kinds of flour and leavener as well as the fermentation and baking process. More often than not, my breads turn out exactly what I’d expect.

So what went wrong with my first Irish soda bread. For the soda bread, instead of using yeast, you use baking soda as the leavener. Although the recipe does not require the dough to ferment for hours, while it rises as yeast breads do, it doesn’t mean you can relax. A rookie mistake.

Quite the contrary, bicarbonate of soda (the essential leavener for soda breads) starts to work as soon as it meets the acidity of the buttermilk (the last ingredient). The gas it produces, and which will make the bread rise, must be harnessed quickly. So working fast, which involves mixing, shaping the dough and getting it into the oven without delay, is critical.

Start by preheating an oval cast iron Dutch oven in a regular or convection oven to 425°F. Meanwhile, I skip the hand mixing. Instead, I dump all the ingredients in the Kitchenaid mixer, with a flat beater attachment. Mix until the dough comes together. Don’t knead the dough; it will make it tough. Take it out of the mixing bowl and gently roll the dough to form a rough oval. Then place it on a piece of parchment paper.

The Dutch oven and the oven should be hot and ready to go at this point. Waste no time to lower the dough (by holding the sides of the parchment paper) into the sizzling hot Dutch oven. Quickly return the covered Dutch oven to the oven. Bake for 30 minutes or longer, until the bread sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.

From start to finish, you can get fresh bread on the table in less than an hour. Easy, lazy or quick? It looks and tastes like the Irish soda bread, as expected.

Print Recipe

Irish Soda Bread

Serves: one loaf

Ingredients

• 225g/8oz whole wheat flour
• 225g/8oz all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 350ml/12fl oz buttermilk

Instructions

1

Preheat the oven to 220C/425F/Gas 8. Put a large Dutch oven and its lid into the oven.

2

In a large bowl, mix the flours, sea salt, sugar and bicarbonate of soda together with your fingers. Pour in the buttermilk, bringing the mixture together as a soft dough. Working quickly (the bicarbonate of soda will start working immediately), shape the dough into a shallow round or oval loaf about 4cm/1½in thick.

3

Remove the hot Dutch oven from the oven, dust the inside lightly with flour then lower in the dough. Cover with the lid and return to the oven.

4

The bread should be ready after about 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave in place for 5 minutes before turning out and leaving to cool slightly before eating. (Soda bread is best eaten warm.)

Notes

https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/nigels_lazy_loaf_71344