- Mar 11, 2022
- 2 min read

Comfort Food Friday: St. Patrick's Day Edition

Today I am sharing my recipe for Irish Soda Bread in honor of St. Patrick's Day next week. It is the one traditional Irish food that I absolutely love (much to John's chagrin, he would eat potatoes all day, every day - I will not). I know there are a lot of variations out there, I have tried a ton of them, and this recipe from my mom is my favorite.

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Here is the recipe in pictures.

All of the ingredients.

First, the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and caraway seeds get mixed together. I use one tablespoon of caraway seeds, you can use more if you like the flavor, my children prefer less seeds.

This is what it looks like after mixed.

Next comes the butter, I like to grate the butter right into the bowl. The size of grated butter makes cutting it into the flour mixture much, much easier.

Here is how the pile of grated butter looks.

I prefer to cut in the butter with two knives, a pastry blender or your hands works just fine too.

This is how it looks after the butter is incorporated.

I add an equal mix of dark and light raisins, one cup of each. You can use one or both in whichever configuration you prefer.

I mix the buttermilk (if you do not have buttermilk you can start with one tablespoon of plain white vinegar in the measuring cup and then add milk), egg, and baking soda right in the measuring cup with a fork.

Pour it on the flour mixture.

For this next step, I now use the dough hook attachment on my trusty 1995 Kitchen Aid mixer. I have made this bread countless times by hand and after years of doing that, I finally tried using the mixer. In addition to being far easier, I happily discovered that it does not compromise the texture of the bread. Be careful not to over-mix though and be sure to keep the mixer on the lowest speed.