Irish Soda Bread

This month's selected bread recipe at Rose's Bread Bible Bakers, is Irish Soda Bread. Rose's Bread Bible Bakers is a group of bloggers who are currently baking from Rose Levy Beranbaum's book, The Bread Bible.

Rose's recipe calls for black raisins soaked in whiskey, drained before adding to the dough. The whiskey is then used to flavour softened butter which is used as a spread to enjoy slices of the soda bread later. 

The dough is made up of unbleached all-purpose flour, or a mixture of all-purpose flour and whole-wheat flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and buttermilk. I have used unbleached all-purpose flour. The dough is very sticky, but, Rose has advised to avoid adding extra flour, and only flour your hands if absolutely necessary. So I flour my hands, shape the dough and try to smooth out the surface as best as I can, even though I've seen that most Irish Soda Bread has a rustic and bumpy surface. I measured the shaped dough to a 6" round, about 1-3/4 inches in height as instructed. Slash a cross on the surface and bake until golden brown and cooked through. I measured the baked bread, and it is now 7" by 3-inch high bread, just as Rose says! 

Moist, not too sweet and the raisins are plump and fragrant from the whiskey. An excellent bread!

The Irish Whiskey Butter. Reserved whiskey from the raisins is heated with some sugar in the microwave until the sugar melts. Leave it to cool completely and whisk into softened butter until incorporated. 

A slice of Irish Soda Bread spread with Irish Whiskey Butter. What a tasty boozy treat for afternoon tea! The bread is even good on its own. This recipe is a keeper!

Up next in November, we will be baking Rich and Creamy Ginger Scones, page 143.

I'm also linking this post with Cookbook Countdown Specials : Bake