St. Patrick's Day Recipe: Traditional Irish Soda Bread with Home-Made Sweet Cream Butter

A Delicious St. Patty's Day Treat

M.S. Beltran
M.S. Beltran, Yahoo! Contributor Network
Mar 2, 2011 "Share your voice on Yahoo! websites. Start Here."
Most "soda breads" sold are more like cakes; traditional soda bread was a poor man's bread: raisins, orange zest, and yeast were hard to come by. If you want a taste of history, this is the stuff, and nothing goes better with it than home made butter.
Category
Bread
Main Ingredients
Baking
Occasion
St. Patrick's Day
Prep Time
 15 min
Cook Time
 45 min
Total Time
1 hrs  

Ingredients

Serves 8
1 tsp Butter or margarine
4 cups All-purpose flour
1 tsp Baking soda
1 tsp Salt
1 1/2 cups Buttermilk
1 pint Heavy cream
1/2 cup Chopped fresh parsely or chives (optional)
Print Recipe

Directions for St. Patrick's Day Recipe: Traditional Irish Soda Bread with Home-Made Sweet Cream Butter

1
Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees. Place a piece of parchment on a baking sheet. and grease it with some soft butter or margariine.
2
Put the flour, baking soda and salt into a big mixing bowl. Stir it with a wire whisk to blend and aerate the dry ingredients.
3
Add in 1 cup of buttermilk, slowly, while stirring with a big spoon. Add more buttermilk sparingly as you stir until the dough is firm and holds together without crumbling. You may not need to use all the buttermilk. Don't over-wet the mixture.
4
Sprinkle some flour on a wood board or on a clean counter. Pat it to shape it into a round disk, about 8 inches diameter, and 1 1/2 inches thick. Place it on the baking sheet and score an "X" into the middle of it with a knife, about 1/2 inch deep.
5
Place the bread in the oven. Pour the heavy cream into a steel bowl.
6
Mix it with a hand mixer. After a few minutes it will be whipped cream, then butter cream. Keep mixing. Finally, the fat will all gather together in a lump and cling to the mixer, leaving a watery white liquid (butter milk) in the bowl.
7
Scrape the butter fat off of the mixer blade and put it into a bowl. Stir it with a wooden spoon. More butter milk will come out, just pour it off. Stir again. If more butter milk comes out, pour it off. Keep doing this until butter milk stops coming out. You need to remove all the butter milk to help it keep longer.
8
Pour some (about 1/4 cup) of cold water over the butter and stir. Don't worry, the fat will remain separate from the water, but the water will help wash away the last remnants of butter milk. Pour off the water into the sink, but don't let the butter fall out.
9
Mix in some finely chopped fresh herbs, such as parsley and chives, if desired-- not only are they tasty, but green for a great St. Patty's Day presentation.
10
Remove the bread from the oven when golden brown. Allow the bread to cool, then slice and smear the butter on. Makes a nice treat with tea, or serve it with your corned beef.
Tip
Reserve the butter milk for other recipes. or drink it. It's quite mild; it's not the tangy, thick buttermilk you would buy in the store because it doesn't have live cultures in it, so don't use it in your soda bread. But it is still delicious milk.

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