Irish Soda Bread -- It Doesn't Get Easier Than This

Do you want easy?  My Tuesdays with Dorie group decided to make the (appropriately timed) Irish Soda Bread this week--and frankly, for bread, it doesn't get much easier than this recipe.  Seriously--I've been making a different, but also easy--recipe for years.  This is even easier.  Four ingredients.  One bowl.  A bit of stirring and half a minute of kneading/shaping.  Wow.  Busy moms take note--this might just become the new favorite after-school snack.

The recipe can be found on p. 214 of Baking with Julia, which is based on the PBS series with Julia Child.  It can also be found on the two host sites for this week:  Chocolate Moosey and My Culinary Mission.  The basic idea is to mix flour, salt, baking soda, and buttermilk into a somewhat sticky dough, turn it out onto a floured counter to knead just enough to shape into a flattened-round, and pop it into a dish to bake.  The bread that comes out is wonderfully flavored, moderately dense, and filling.  My boys that came in from track and my daughter who came in from ballet yesterday afternoon scarfed down a quarter apiece.  I should have made two loaves.

The bread lends itself really well to adaptation.  The book mentions adding a cup of raisins, currants, or diced dried fruits to the dough.  You could just as easily add a less traditional cup total of cheese, cheese & jalapeno, chopped basil & sun dried tomato, or even a pinch or two of rosemary or thyme.  The possibilities are limited only by your imagination.  

If you don't have buttermilk on hand, you can always use the "make your own" trick of pouring a scant tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar in the bottom of a cup measure and filling the rest with milk.  If you let that sit for a minute or two, you have buttermilk!  Now you don't have any excuses not to try out the recipe today.  

Besides being a great after-school snack, it's one of the easiest dinner breads that you can make.  For you working moms & dads, you can mix some up when you first get home, go about the rest of your after work routine, and in an hour, you will have nice warm bread coming out of the oven.  Wow!