Tuesday, March 8, 2022

Sourdough Irish Soda Bread #BreadBakers

This soda bread gets an added dose of tang from sourdough starter, texture from oats and a hint of spice. Raisins or none, it's up to you!

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I keep forgetting about how delicious and easy soda bread is - I'm usually embroiled in making slow rising sourdoughs, boules filled with a bunch of grains, seeds and fruit, or a batch of sandwich loaves when my creativity is running low. That said, for some reason in March I get a bit of an injection of Irish inspiration and I dig back into our bread books to see what I can do!

I always feel a touch of guilt tossing some of my sourdough starter every time I feed it, so I went on the lookout for recipes to use it this time around. The Gingered Whisk has a great simple recipe for soda bread that used sourdough discard, so I used that as a base and added flavour, fruit and fibre to it while making it vegan (dairy and eggs are getting expensive here). The result was a slightly sweet, deeply flavoured loaf studded with juicy raisins and just enough texture from the oats to be interesting. 

While tradition would be to tear into this while it is still warm and top with copious amounts of butter, my sources say this was still excellent the next morning for breakfast topped with some grape jam (we are still working through the 30 jars we canned last year!), and for tea with butter and honey.

BreadBakers
I am hosting this month and asked the others to join me in sharing Irish Breads in honor of St. Patricks Day which is right around the corner.  Let's see what everyone baked up for us today......

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page.

We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

Sourdough Irish Soda Bread

Makes 1 Loaf
1 cup raisins
1 cup 100% hydration sourdough starter discard (I used mine straight from the fridge)
3/4 cup buttermilk (or vegan substitute - I used oat milk + lemon juice)
1 tbsp canola oil
2 tsp vanilla
3 tbsp ground flax seed
1/2 cup large / thick flake rolled oats
2 1/2 cups flour
2 scoops Naked Shake Pumpkin Spice protein powder (optional, sub with 1/3 cup more flour + 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice)
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
  1. Pour boiling water over the raisins and let soak 1 hour. Drain and set aside.
  2. Heat the oven to 400F and line a baking sheet with parchment or SilPat.
  3. In a large bowl, mix together the sourdough starter, buttermilk, oil and vanilla until well mixed.
  4. Add the flax seed and oats. Cover and let stand 15 minutes.
  5. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well to form a slightly sticky dough (it shouldn't really cling to your fingers, but give a little resistance when working with it).
  6. Knead in the raisins gently.
  7. Shape dough into a rough ball and place on the baking sheet.
  8. Use a sharp knife or kitchen scissors to cut an X across the top.
  9. Bake 35-40 minutes, until the loaf sounds hollow when tapped.
  10. Cool at least 15 minutes before serving - for the cleanest slices, refrigerate overnight.

8 comments :

  1. I"m always looking for recipes using my discard as well. Can't wait to make this bread. Thanks for sharing.

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    1. Thanks! I'm planning to make another one or two loaves this week, I've created a monster lol

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  2. Oh wow you have made it using sourdough. Love the taste of the sourdough Irish soda bread and the bread has a beautiful colour.

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  3. I love that you can use sourdough discard in this soda bread. I have been resisting making soda bread but you have convinced me to try it.

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  4. I love adding sourdough discard to soda bread! Such a great addition for flavor and no worries about the rising. Such a pretty loaf, Sarah!

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  5. Thank you for sharing this sourdough version! Love having more ways to refresh my starter.

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  6. sourdough version! I am loving it! The discard will also give soft softness and will rise. Great recipe and love how the bread turned out.

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  7. It was nice to go through your post. Thanks for sharing the recipe here. Keep up the good work.

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Thanks for the feedback!