Recipe: American Irish Soda Bread

2/23/2009

1 cups multi-purpose white wheat flour

1 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (or 2 cups whole wheat and 1 cup all-purpose flour)

1 teaspoon baking soda

teaspoon salt

cup sugar

2 tablespoons butter, at room temperature

1 to 1 cups raisins

3 tablespoons caraway seeds

1 egg

2 cups buttermilk

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. Rub in the butter with your fingertips until the mixture looks like cornmeal. Stir in raisins and caraway seeds. In a smaller bowl, beat together egg with buttermilk. Stir this into the flour mixture, taking about 20 seconds; don t beat. This will make a batter instead of a dough. Pour batter into a greased 9 by 5-inch loaf pan and bake 45 minutes or until a cake tester inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean

Yield: 1 loaf

Source: The Baking Sheet, King Arthur Flour, 1993