easy skillet irish soda bread

Irish Soda Bread is one of the easiest breads you can make at home. All you need are pantry staple ingredients and a craving for melt-in-your-mouth home-baked bread. Its fluffy on the inside, with a crisp, golden crust, and delicious (optional) raisins studded throughout.

this recipe

This traditional Soda Bread is as easy to make as it is delicious – and it definitely holds up against the homemade soda bread we had in Ireland! We stayed on a sheep farm, where our hosts made us fresh-baked soda bread – it was as wonderful as it sounds!

Why you’ll love this Soda Bread:

• Delicious Soda Bread – This Irish Soda Bread is delicious, with a crisp outside and a fluffy inside.
• Easy Quick Bread – We’re not using any yeast, making this a great way to venture into the world of bread baking if you’re a bit timid about yeasted bread. (Baking soda is our leavening agent here – hence the name!)
• Versatile – This bread is delicious with a mug of Irish stew or your favorite soup, or toasted and spread with jam and butter.

Ingredient Overview:

• All-purpose flour – Spoon & level your flour for best results, or use a scale. Scooping the measuring cup directly in will lead to too much flour.
• Butter – I always use salted buter for the best flavor, but feel free to use unsalted butter if you prefer.
• Buttermilk – Buttermilk is an important part of this bread – it reacts with the baking soda to provide leavening, since there’s no yeast.
• Egg – Use large eggs.

Ingredient Substitutions:

• Buttermilk – If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, try using whole or 2% milk and lemon juice or vinegar. Add 1 tbsp of either lemon juice or vinegar to a 2-cup glass measuring cup, then pour in milk until it reaches the 1 and 3/4 cup mark. Let sit 5 minutes, and you’ve got a buttermilk substitute! However, using actual buttermilk will give the best possible results.
• Raisins – Feel free to omit these if you don’t like raisins, or try dried currants instead if you like. (Currants have a sweeter and tangy taste.)
• Plain – Feel free to omit the raisins and not swap any other dried fruit in.

How to Make Irish Soda Bread:

Step 1: Make the Dough. Whisk together your dry ingredients in a large bowl. Then, cut your butter into the flour mixture. If you don’t have a pastry cutter you can use forks or your hands – just be sure the butter is broken down into pea-sized pieces and is coated in the flour. 

Step 2: Finish Making the Dough. Once you have a crumbly mixture, stir in the raisins. Then, make a well in the center and pour in the egg + buttermilk. Stir the ingredients together until you have a stiff, shaggy, slightly sticky dough.

(Try saying that 5 times fast, heh!) Gently shape the dough, on a floured counter, into a ball. Place into a well-greased pan, score an “X” in the bread with a sharp knife, and bake!

Step 3: Bake the Soda Bread. Bake as directed in the recipe card below. The loaf will be crisp on top and golden brown when baked.

Even if you aren’t someone who would normally make homemade bread, I beg you to try this! It’s incredibly delicious, and, it’s the perfect place to begin if you haven’t tried baking bread with yeast yet. 

Serving + Storing:

Serve the bread while it’s nice and warm, with a generous dollop of salted butter. Let pan rest on a cooling rack, then store cooled bread in an airtight container at room temp for 3-4 days. I love popping it in the toaster to re-warm it and re-crisp it a bit.

Serve this with my Guinness Irish Stew and finish off the meal with a slice of my Guinness Chocolate Cake!

Expert Success Tips:

• Don’t Over Mix – Over mixing or over working the dough can lead to tough bread, so try to handle it just as much as you need to.
• Don’t Over Bake – As with any baked good, over baking will lead to a dry end result. Follow the bake time and cues given in the recipe card below.
• Scale – Everyone needs a food scale in their kitchen to make sure their flour is at the proper weight, since amounts vary SO widely based on how you measure it.
• Oven Thermometer – An oven thermometer will tell you if your oven is actually running at the temperature you set it to. Your oven may not be accurate and this will let you know if you’re actually baking something at 375 or 300 when you set the oven to 350. The temperature is crucial for most bakes, so I leave thermometer in at all times to keep an eye on the calibration.

FAQs:

Special Tools:

• Cast Iron Skillet – I love my Staub skillet, and it has held up amazingly for years, but it is a splurge. If you’d like a more budget friendly option, try this Lodge skillet.

More St. Patrick’s Day Recipes:

• Beer Braised Short Ribs with Cheddar Mashed Potatoes
• Bacon Cheddar Chive Scones
• Guinness Chocolate Cake with Brown Butter Frosting
• Mom’s Irish Stew
• Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes
• Guinness Lamb Stew
• Beer Bread with Salted Honey Butter

---

---