Irish Soda Bread (Dutch Oven Recipe) (2024)

5 from 9 votes

• 1 ½ - 1 ¾ cups of buttermilk see directions below. If you do not have buttermilk you can substitute 1 ½ cups of milk mixed with 1 ½ tablespoons of lemon juice or vinegar.
• 1 ½ cups oats (old fashioned)
• 1 ½ cup whole wheat flour (if you don't have whole wheat flour you can substitute all purpose white flour)
• 1 cup All purpose flour
• ¼ cup brown sugar packed
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt

• Pre-heat your oven to 450 degrees.

• Get a large dutch oven out and place a sheet of parchment paper inside the dutch oven and set aside. Don't worry if the parchment paper overlaps the dutch oven.

• In a large bowl sift your flour, baking soda and salt.

  1 ½ cup whole wheat flour, 1 cup All purpose flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon salt

• Now add your brown sugar and mix it into the flour mixture.

  ¼ cup brown sugar packed

• Add your oats and mix that around.

  1 ½ cups oats (old fashioned)

• Now add your buttermilk. The original recipe calls for 1 ½ cups of buttermilk but I found this was too dry (maybe because it is always so wet in Ireland that breads need less liquids), so I added an additional ¼ cup of buttermilk so that the dough is moist not crumbly and it came out great. So the total amount of buttermilk I used was 1 ¾ cups.

  1 ½ - 1 ¾ cups of buttermilk

• After you add your buttermilk mix it well by folding your dough around with a spoon making sure to get all of the flour incorporated into the buttermilk.

• Once that is done, bring your bowl over to your dutch oven and dump the dough right in to it.

• With the back of a spoon or a spatula, smooth out the dough into a round even shape.

• Score the top of your dough with a very sharp knife by making an X pattern. Make sure to only score halfway through the dough. This is a traditional pattern for Irish soda bread.

• Now place the lid on your dutch oven and place it in your pre-heated oven for 45 minutes.

  See Also

  Basic Homemade Pizza Dough | Recipes

• After 45 minutes, remove the lid and bake for another 10 minutes to give the bread a nice brown golden crust.

• When done, remove from the oven and take your bread out of the dutch oven and place on a baking rack for 30 minutes to cool.

• With a serrated knife, cut your bread into 1 inch slices. The bread will have a nice hard crust on the top and bottom and the inside will be nice and soft.