How to Make Homemade Soda Bread From Scratch

Add this homemade soda bread recipe to your collection for whenever you need a simple, quick, and easy bread option

Bread is one of the most common staples of almost any dish you can think of. It would be easier to list what recipes bread doesn’t work well with than the other way around. And making your own bread from scratch provides so many benefits, like allowing you to control the ingredients, avoid any unnecessary or harmful chemical additives, and grow your baking skills. And there are so many types of bread to choose from. If you’ve read our other post, How to Make a Gluten-Free Sourdough Bread From Scratch, you’ll know that sourdough is one of our favorite kinds of bread. However, the starter, which acts as a leavening agent, can take a full week to ferment. What happens if need bread before your starter will be ready? We’ve created a homemade soda bread recipe just for days just like this, and we want to share it with you so can make high-quality bread whenever you’re in a pinch.

What Is Soda Bread?

Soda bread was popularized in the 1800s with the rise of sodium bicarbonate, or as it’s more commonly known, baking soda. Using baking soda as a leavening agent instead of yeast sets soda bread apart from more traditional breads. Soda bread gained popularity because baking soda was cheaper than yeast at the time of its introduction and could work just as well with the softer wheat that grew in the region.

Because this style of soda bread was popularized in Ireland, it is generally referred to as Irish soda bread. But multiple cultures also created their own version of soda bread using potash instead of the sodium bicarbonate baking soda.

What Is a Leavening Agent?

If you have done a lot of baking, you might already know what a leavening agent is and why it is so important for bread baking. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines a leavening agent as a “substance causing expansion of doughs and batters by the releasing of gases within such mixtures.” The gases expand during the baking process and create the size and porous texture found in most breads. Multiple ingredients can act as leavening agents, from chemical mixtures like baking soda to ferments to even just air and steam. Generally, a leavening agent just needs to be able to release carbon dioxide in order to leaven the bread.

Why We Make Homemade Soda Bread

Here at Glover Cottage Grove, sourdough bread is our typical go-to bread. We love the riche, unique flavor, and fermented foods can offer so many health benefits. However, sourdough takes a long time to make. Creating the starter alone means waiting at least a week for that to ferment. Then there are the multiple rounds of rising to let the sourdough get the perfect consistency. But with homemade soda bread, we can skip most of those steps.

Soda bread is considered a quick bread. Despite still being an artisan bread by nature of being hand-made, homemade soda bread’s use of a preestablished leavening agent allows you to bake it without leaving it to rise. This allows us to make nutritious and tasty bread within a little over an hour of work (and we spend most of that time just waiting for the bread to bake).

How to Make Homemade Soda Bread

Homemade Gluten-Free Soda Bread

Yield: 1 Loaf

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 45 minutes

Total Time: 5 minutes

Learn how to make a quick an easy gluten-free soda bread that is rich in flavor and a perfect bread in a pinch!

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Ingredients

• 1 cup almond flour
• 2 cups gluten-free all-purpose flour
• ½ cup ground flaxseeds
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 cups buttermilk

Instructions

1. Place a Dutch oven inside your actual oven and preheat to 450℉.
2. While the Dutch oven preheats, mix the dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl.
3. Create a well in the center of the dry ingredient mixture. This is where you are going to pour your buttermilk.
4. Pour the buttermilk into the well and mix. When ready, the dough will have a sturdy but workable consistency.
5. Use a hard surface covered in a layer of flour to mix the dough into a ball.
6. Once the dough has formed into a ball, score a large X into the top. You can score other designs if desired, but the X is generally a signature of soda bread.
7. After the oven has preheated, place the dough on baking parchment paper and then put the dough in the Dutch oven still on the parchment paper. The paper will help keep the dough from sticking to the Dutch oven.
8. Immediately before baking the dough, place an ice cube in the Dutch oven on the side of the parchment paper that won't touch the dough. Then, cover and bake for 20 minutes.
9. After the first bake, remove the lid, turn the oven down to 400, and bake for an additional 25 minutes uncovered.
10. After the final bake remove the bread from the oven. Let cool completely before cutting. This will let the bread set correctly and keep you from getting burned.

Notes

We have two different ways of making buttermilk: either use 1 cup of milk and 1 Tbsp of vinegar OR the buttermilk from making your own butter plus 1 Tbsp of yogurt. Let the buttermilk and yogurt sit overnight at room temperature to ferment.

Notes

Various factors like humidity, temperature, and even your ingredients’ brands can change the consistency or flavor of your bread. Experiment with the ingredients to find the perfect ratio for your tastes.

When scoring your homemade soda bread, be careful not to score it too deeply. This can create a crust that separates from the interior of the bread.