BOB — Irish Whole-Wheat Soda Bread

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This was my sixth loaf from Beard on Bread. (A con­tin­u­a­tion of my sil­ly lit­tle project that involves try­ing every recipe in this clas­sic cook­book. I start­ed doc­u­ment­ing my tri­als and tribu­la­tions after my fourth loaf.)

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I had about three cups of but­ter­milk left over after mak­ing the wild­ly suc­cess­ful White Free-Form Loaf from Beard’s book, so I decid­ed to make Beard’s Irish soda bread. It was only about a week after St. Pat­ty’s Day, after all, so why not?

The prep

Full dis­clo­sure: I was try­ing to use up not only but­ter­milk, but whole-wheat flour. Whole-wheat flour pur­chased ear­ly in 2020 and sit­ting in the fridge ever since. How­ev­er, it looked and smelled OK, so I went with it. 

Ear­ly on, Beard’s mix­ing direc­tions say, after mix­ing togeth­er the dry ingre­di­ents, ” … then add enough but­ter­milk to make a soft dough, sim­i­lar in qual­i­ty to bis­cuit dough but firm enough to hold its shape.” I have no idea what bis­cuit dough should be like, so I just went with the hold­ing its shape part. For that to work, I had to add about an extra ½ cup of buttermilk.

How­ev­er, when it was time to knead, I had to com­pen­sate with a large-ish but unmea­sured amount of extra whole-wheat flour because the dough was help­less­ly stick­ing to the board. (I’m esti­mat­ing between ½ and ¾ cup.) I knead­ed and knead­ed, but gave up try­ing to get it “quite smooth and vel­vety.” Final­ly, I man­aged to form the dough into a round loaf and cut a nice cross through the top. (Flour­ing the knife seems to be a good trick even though it’s not clear any flour actu­al­ly adhered to the dry knife blade.)

So far, for my first five loaves, Beard’s pre­scribed oven tem­per­a­tures and time ranges for bak­ing were spot-on. Because of this I might have relied too much on temp and time and paid less atten­tion to look and feel. Says Beard, “Bake in a 375° oven for 35 to 40 min­utes, or until the loaf is nice­ly browned and sounds hol­low when rapped with the knuck­les.” Alas, when I pulled out the loaf it prob­a­bly was­n’t as browned as it should have been, and though I did try the rap­ping test, I removed the bread from the oven even though it did­n’t sound as hol­low as per­haps it should have.

The result

In the head­note, Beard says the bread “has a vel­vety tex­ture, quite unlike yeast bread, and the most dis­tinc­tive and deli­cious taste. Sliced paper thin and but­tered, it is one of the best tea or break­fast breads I know, and it makes won­der­ful toast for any meal.”

OK, let’s see how my loaf mea­sures up to these lofty ideals.

Ini­tial­ly, slices revealed a nice­ly even bake, a good toast, but a ques­tion­able fla­vor, as if I could taste a few indi­vid­ual com­po­nents of the loaf — the whole-wheat flour, the bak­ing soda, the salt. I did­n’t enjoy that. How­ev­er, toast­ed with some but­ter or mar­garine or jam, it was very tasty and chewy.

Until …

… I start­ed to slice a bit more towards the cen­ter of the loaf only to find that … 

via GIPHY

Yep, the cen­ter of the loaf was a raw, doughy, unsight­ly mess. 

The aftermath

I thought I could save the bread by toast­ing the raw-ish slices very well, but the raw parts just tast­ed nasty. I end­ed up toss­ing the mid­dle part of the loaf — the slices near the perime­ter were fine for toast­ing and eating.

Ini­tial­ly I had con­clud­ed “I’ll nev­er make this again,” but I have since soft­ened my harsh opin­ion about the loaf. After all, I used old, per­haps slight­ly ran­cid, flour and did­n’t fol­low the bak­ing instruc­tions well. And maybe I added too much extra but­ter­milk. So, maybe I’ll give it anoth­er go if I once again find myself with a lot of but­ter­milk to use up.

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Irish Whole-Wheat Soda Bread

[1 round loaf]

3 cups whole-wheat flour
1 cup all-pur­pose flour
1 table­spoon salt
1 lev­el tea­spoon bak­ing soda
¾ tea­spoon dou­ble-act­ing bak­ing pow­der
1½ to 2 cups buttermilk 

Com­bine the dry ingre­di­ents and mix thor­ough­ly to dis­trib­ute the soda and bak­ing pow­der, then add enough but­ter­milk to make a soft dough, sim­i­lar in qual­i­ty to bis­cuit dough but firm enough to hold its shape. Knead on a light­ly floured board for 2 or 3 min­utes, until quite smooth and vel­vety. Form into a round loaf and place in a well-but­tered 8‑inch cake pan or a well-but­tered cook­ie sheet. Cut a cross on the top of the loaf with a very sharp, floured knife. Bake in a pre­heat­ed 375° oven for 35 to 40 min­utes or until the loaf is nice­ly browned and sounds hol­low when rapped with the knuck­les. (The cross will have spread open, which is char­ac­ter­is­tic of soda bread.) Let the loaf cool before slic­ing very thin; soda bread must nev­er be thick.

Beard on Bread, James Beard, Knopf, 1974, p.164–165 (Head­note and vari­a­tion excluded)

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Irish Whole-Wheat Soda Bread recipe from Beard on Bread by James Beard. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1974, p.164–165.