Buttermilk Soda Bread

This Buttermilk Soda Bread is classic, simple, rustic, and so delicious. Bake up a fresh loaf in no time, and bring the earthy energy of fresh baked bread into your home. It's gonna be awesome.

I'm an urban witch, but I have fantasies of a cottage in the woods with an overgrown garden bursting with flowers and medicinal herbs. There's a beehive in the backyard, and they bring me honey and messages from the spirit world. It has a rustic kitchen with big windows and plenty of streaming sunshine. The hearth is tidy and inviting, and the smell of freshly baked bread always hangs in the air.

In real life, I live in the middle of a bustling, noisy city. I work full time and have a number of side projects. I'm a victim of that ubiquitous busy-ness we all seem to find ourselves caught up in. But I still long for simple things and quiet moments. That's why I'm a kitchen witch. We can find the peace of hearth and cauldron in any home.

What makes Buttermilk Soda Bread so awesome?

This Buttermilk Soda Bread makes that dream of fresh baked bread a reality. Since it's leavened with baking soda, there's no waiting around for the dough to rise. This recipe has only four ingredients and takes about 10 minutes to mix, then just over a half hour to bake. It gets a lovely crunchy crust on the outside, and the inside is tender and flavorful from the buttermilk.

This is simple enough to bake up on a regular basis. Serve it alongside your favorite soups and stews. Toast it up simply with good salted butter and honey for breakfast. Or use it as the base for some extravagant toast creation. This is also a great recipe for adding your favorite seeds or dried fruits if you want to take it in that direction. It also doesn't require any complicated shaping, so it's perfect for beginner bakers.

Make it magical

A bit of googling indicates that there's plenty of folk tradition around soda bread, particularly for the Irish. Some say the cross cut into the top of the bread represents the Catholic faith. Baking soda wasn't commercially available until the 1830s, so it may not have Pagan roots, but lots of Pagan culture was absorbed into Irish Catholicism, and the symbol of the cross was in use long before Christianity. There's a technical reason for cutting into the dough as well.

All types of bread carry earthy, grounding energy and can be used as offerings. Buttermilk was once the by-product of butter-making, so it can bring the same type of transformative energy as butter can. Salt, of course, is protective, and milk and wheat flour both have strong fertility properties.

For details on the magical properties of the ingredients in this recipe, check out my Kitchen Magick page.

Tips for making Buttermilk Soda Bread

This Buttermilk Soda Bread is extremely simple. Add your flour, baking soda, and salt to a mixing bowl and stir to combine. Make sure you don't have any clumps of baking soda. Then add in buttermilk, and stir until a dough forms. Dump this out onto a floured countertop, and bring it together with your hands into a rustic round loaf.

Transfer this to a baking sheet and use a knife or a bench scraper to score a deep cross into the dough. You want it to go about halfway down. You can give this a spiritual intention, but it's also there to help the inside of your bread cook more quickly by allowing the heat to get to the center of the loaf.

Let it bake for about 35. It will be golden brown and crunchy on the outside. Give it a thump on the bottom to make sure you get that hollow bread sound to ensure it's baked all the way through. Let it cool, but definitely eat it warm with plenty of good salted butter. It's pure heaven.

FAQ

We're modern witches trying to connect with our ancestors in the real world. Make up some Buttermilk Soda Bread and bring tradition into your kitchen. It's gonna be awesome.

Looking for more awesome quick bread recipes? Try some Whole Wheat Guinness Soda Bread or this Cheddar Habanero Corn Bread.

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Recipe slightly adapted from The Great British Book of Baking by Linda Collister.