Irish Soda Bread Recipe Plain Flour

This is an easy Irish soda bread recipe with a 5-minute preparation and no kneading skills required! This yeast-free dough is perfect for beginner bakers and busy families!

Soda bread (Irish: arán sóide) is a traditional Irish bread. The dough for this bread doesn’t use yeast, but bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) which is the rising agent here.

Traditional

No mixer and no proofing are needed to make a loaf of this brown soda bread. It’s so easy that it makes a great baking project for kids as well.

Irish Soda Bread Recipe (traditional Brown Bread)

It is a perfect choice for those who want to try and make homemade bread but are put off by the long process that needs to be followed for yeast based breads. This Irish soda bread is quick to make and tastes amazing!

We love this brown soda bread lightly toasted with butter and homemade preserves (Low Sugar Strawberry Jam is our favorite as well as Mixed Berry Jam).

But because it is not sweet, it goes also well with creamy soups like Zucchini Soup or Potato Leek Soup (which is so easy to make in a pressure cooker!).

Vegan Soda Bread (no Buttermilk)

Wholemeal and all-purpose flour are combined with salt and baking soda in a large mixing bowl. I have a 4.25-quart (4-liter) Mason Cash bowl that I love for making Irish brown soda bread.

It’s wide enough so you can form a dough easily by hands, without having to transfer it onto a worktop. Now that being said, if you end up with a softer dough, it will be easier to shape it into a loaf on a worktop rather than in a bowl.

Now, give all those 4 ingredients a good stir before you add buttermilk. Then, all you have to do is mix everything – start with a wooden spoon and finish it off with your hands.

Grandma's Irish Soda Bread

You don’t need to knead it. You want to shape it into a loaf. Then, place it onto a baking sheet lined with baking parchment and brush the soda bread loaf with egg wash.

Baking should not take long – only about 30 minutes so you can easily make a loaf of this Irish soda bread on a weeknight.

If you like this Irish brown soda bread recipe, you might also like other Irish Recipes on our blog like Full Irish Breakfast or Irish Colcannon.

Rustic Irish Soda Bread

Note: This Irish brown soda bread is an old post that has been updated with new photos and detailed instructions with lots of useful tips.Make delicious, crusty white bread in under 40 minutes – with no kneading, or proving! My Easy White Soda Bread is super simple to make and only uses 4 ingredients! Wonderful eaten just as it is or as an accompaniment to soups and stews.

I am hugely passionate about soda bread – not only does it taste amazing, but it’s also unbelievably quick and easy to make: no kneading, no proving and only 4 simple ingredients!

Regular bread is not hard to make, but it is time consuming… and as I’ve shared before, I’m really not a fan of kneading, or waiting around for bread to prove – I am an impatient soul.

Irish Soda Bread Recipe

Soda bread, on the other hand, can be done and dusted in under 40 minutes – now that’s my kind of bread!

And I love how simple it is to make – just throw a few basic ingredients into a bowl, mix until you have a ball of dough, place on a baking tray, cut a cross and pop it in the oven.

Most soda bread recipes I’ve come across are for wholemeal soda bread, or contain a mix of wholemeal and white flours. And my previous recipes for soda bread have all been wholemeal.

Traditional

Irish Soda Bread Muffins (not So Traditional But Oh So Delicious!)

But there is absolutely no reason why you can’t make soda bread white! When I realised recently that I did not have a white soda bread recipe on my website, I knew I needed to create one!

I usually use plain flour when making soda bread, but for this recipe, I decided to experiment with using strong white bread flour. I made one loaf using strong white bread flour and one using plain (all purpose) white flour – the result really surprised me!

The loaf made with plain white flour was FAR BETTER than the one made using strong white bread flour. I would never have guessed that to be the case!

Six Seed Soda Bread

So, if you make white soda bread, I STRONGLY RECOMMEND you use plain (all purpose) white flour rather than strong white bread flour.

The first was you need to use more salt when making white soda bread (compared to making wholemeal soda bread) – this is because white flour has less flavour than wholemeal flour, so more salt is needed to stop white soda bread tasting bland.

Obviously, you can experiment with this to find the right level for your tastes, but I found I needed 1.5 tsp salt per loaf (350g flour) – this works out at less than ¼ of a teaspoon per (generous) portion, so it’s still not excessive (just don’t eat the whole loaf, OK?)

Easy Irish Soda Bread Recipe

The other was that I needed to lower the oven temperature. I normally cook wholemeal soda bread at 220C (200C fan / gas mark 7 / 425F), but I found at this temperature the white soda bread got burnt on the outside before it was fully cooked in the middle, and the crust was far too crusty (this is coming from a girl who really likes crusty bread!). So I lowered the oven to 180C (160C fan/ gas mark 4 / 350F) and it came out just perfectly.

This is also a great temperature to cook stews, so you can have a stew cooking and just pop in a loaf of soda bread towards the end of the cooking time.

Easy

Absolutely! To make soda bread without buttermilk, simply use 200ml/7oz regular milk with 1 tablespoon of lemon juice (apple cider vinegar or white wine vinegar also work) stirred into the milk to sour it…it will work just fine!

Traditional Irish Soda Bread

No! It won’t work. You need to use baking soda (AKA bicarbonate of soda). It is the reaction between the acid in the buttermilk (or lemon juice/vinegar/yogurt) and the baking soda that helps the soda bread to rise.

Yes! Because soda bread cooks quickly, if you don’t cut the big cross, you are likely to find the outside of the soda bread is cooked before the middle of the soda bread. Cutting the deep cross on top helps the heat to penetrate right to the centre of the bread really fast.

Soda bread does not keep especially long (mostly because it is so delicious!) – it is best eaten on the day you make it. The day after it tastes OK, but is usually starting to go a little stale. If you do have some left over the next day, I suggest you toast it – toasted soda bread is delicious!

Irish Bacon And Cheddar Soda Bread

Absolutely! Soda bread freezes really well. Just make sure you freeze it on the day you baked it and that it is completely cool and well wrapped (wrapping should be airtight – e.g. a freezer bag) before putting it in the freezer. You can freeze it as a whole loaf or cut it into slices first. It will keep in the freezer for up to 3 months. Defrost at room temperature and either eat it at room temperature or toast it.

Soda bread is delicious warm out of the oven, just as it is – or slathered with jam/honey/Nutella etc. It’s also wonderful with antipasti type foods, such as or cheese, olives and cold meats.

Alternatively, it is a brilliant accompaniment to soups and stews. I made this particular loaf especially to go with my Easy One Pot Irish Lamb Stew, but it would also go brilliantly with:

Gluten Free Soda Bread (the Best Texture!)

Have you got your hands on a copy of my meal plan yet? If not CLICK HERE to download a copy of my FREE 4 Week Easy Dinners Meal Plan today!TRADITIONAL IRISH SODA BREAD — This Traditional Irish soda bread is made with just a few simple ingredients but bakes up into a beautiful, bakery quality loaf.

Grandma's

I’ve tried several recipes for Irish soda bread, and this Traditional Irish Soda Bread is by far my favorite. It bakes up into such a beautiful loaf that I can hardly believe it isn’t a yeast bread.

Even better, it’s so incredibly easy to make, especially if you’re impatient like me and don’t want to wait around forthe dough to rise.

Vegan Soda Bread

I was totally shocked at how good this was. Made this yesterday for St. Patrick’s day and was a little nervous by the short ingredient list. No butter? But it was amazing & everyone had more than one piece! ~ Lindsey

The trick (or at least I’m assuming it’s the trick) is baking the bread with an inverted cake pan on top. I don’t know what kind of scientific baking magic that inverted pan creates.

I just know this recipe never fails me and I get a beautiful, bakery quality loaf of Irish soda bread every time.

Paul Hollywood's Soda Bread (no Yeast)

Like so many delicious breads, Irish Soda Bread is theproduct of a time when