Irish Soda Bread

The batter for this unadulterated soda bread features buttermilk for a special richness.

For quick and easy bread, make Ina Garten's Irish Soda Bread recipe from Barefoot Contessa on Food Network � just mix, knead and bake.

Anitra Earle of Yonkers, New York, writes: "I'm a perfume detective who hunts down hard-to-find and discontinued scents. One of the benefits of running my business from home is that I get to cook every day. I usually make dishes that I've relied on for years."

Soda bread has been an Irish household staple since baking soda became commercially available in the early 19th century. It uses just four ingredients that most people kept on hand: flour, salt, baking soda, and buttermilk (raisins and caraway seeds are an American addition). A real soda bread is a simple loaf with a beautifully browned, craggy crust and a nice chew, best eaten liberally smeared with salty Irish butter.

Whether or not you're Irish, this classic quick bread recipe brings great taste into your kitchen.

Once upon a time, soda bread was baked over hot coals in a covered skillet, trapping steam from the dough to produce a wonderfully crusty loaf of bread—a setup anyone can re-create in a Dutch oven.

Quick and easy Irish soda bread recipe with flour, baking soda, salt, buttermilk, raisins, an egg, and a touch of sugar.

Make and share this Traditional Irish Soda Bread recipe from Genius Kitchen.

Dedicated to the preservation of the recipe for Traditional Irish Soda Bread.

Just add butter.

Chewy and light, most of this soda bread's sweetness comes from its currants, and a crackly-crunchy sugar crust.

Soda bread (Irish: arán sóide, Scots: fardel, Serbian: česnica / чесница) is a variety of quick bread traditionally made in a variety of cuisines in which sodium bicarbonate (otherwise known as "baking soda") is used as a leavening agent instead of the traditional yeast.

This is the best Irish soda bread I've ever had. It's lighter and softer than most others I've tried. We like slices spread with whipped butter. —Kerry Barnett-Amundson, Ocean Park, Washington