How to Make Soda Bread for St Patrick's Day: Top Tips from PureKnead Bakery

It’s St Patrick’s Day this week and to commemorate the traditional Irish holiday, we thought we’d encourage you to make a traditional Irish dish to go with it. There are all sorts of excellent Irish recipes to try – boxty, colcannon, boiled bacon and cabbage and the rest – but one of the best is soda bread, so we called in the experts. PureKnead Bakery on Dean Street is a superb artisanal bakery right in the heart of Newcastle, and were more than happy to help out with a delicious recipe.

Soda bread is made all over the world - sometimes but not always as a result of the Irish diaspora. It’s traditionally made with baking soda instead of yeast to act as a raising agent, and often uses buttermilk. Flatbreads like this are fast and easy to make, traditionally being cooked on a griddle. As better flour became available in Ireland, soda bread became less popular until it was revived in the 1960s and these days it can be found all over the country in a myriad of varieties: it can be made with Guinness, sweeteners, nuts and other flavourings. There are regional variations too – in Northern Ireland, soda bread is usually white and savoury while brown soda bread is known as wheaten and is usually sweet. In the Republic of Ireland, wheaten is just called ‘brown bread’, while in County Fermanagh, the white version is known as ‘fadge’. And there are ‘griddle cakes’ or ‘farls’ too – rounded and cross cut to allow for rising.

PureKnead was the first bakery to spring to mind to source a soda bread recipe: starting in Tynemouth Market in 2015 and finally opening a Newcastle city centre branch in 2021, Paula Watson and her team have built up a remarkable reputation for their bread and cakes. Made in traditional ways with wholesome ingredients, their breads are baked with fantastic attention to detail and that's reflected in their delicious flavour. Their head bread baker is Ash Lambert and he was kind enough to give us a few top tips for baking soda bread at home.

Ash Lambert's Soda Bread Recipe:

This really couldn’t be easier!

Ingredients:

• 450g plain white flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda seived
• 12-14oz buttermilk (if you can’t find any, you can cheat by using lemon juice)

Preparation:

The only important thing to remember here is that once the dough is mixed, the buttermilk will begin to react with the bicarbonate of soda straight away, so speed is of the essence!

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 230 °c / 450 °f

Step 2: Mix your flour, salt and bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)

Step 3: Add the majority of your buttermilk - keep a little back because different batches of flour absorb liquid differently and you don’t want the mix to be too wet. Soda bread doesn’t need working to release the gluten, just mix it thoroughly and turn it out onto a floured surface.

Step 4: Tidy the loaf up by shaping it into a circle, patting it down to a thickness of about 1.5 inches.

Step 5: Add ‘the blessing’: with a sharp knife, score a deep cross along the surface to allow the dough to rise. (Traditionally you would also add 4 small holes with the tip of a knife in each quadrant, to release the fairies!)

Step 6: Transfer the loaf to a floured baking tray and put it in the oven as soon as possible.

Step 7: Bake for 30-35 minutes until the loaf is golden and the base sounds hollow when given a tap. Enjoy with good butter and cheese. Best eaten on the same day as you bake it, which trust us, won’t be a problem!

And that’s all there is to it! You should have a tasty, traditional loaf of soda bread, for St Patrick’s Day or whenever you fancy making some easy but delicious bread at home. It goes well with Irish stew as too! And if you’re not sure your kitchen skills are up to it, swing by PureKnead Bakery on St Patrick’s Day – they’ll have a few soda bread loaves for sale (and some samples for you to try).