Breakfast Irish Soda Bread - Recipe Girl (2024)

FAQs

Why is my Irish soda bread gummy? ›

And finally, don't immediately cut into the Fast Irish Soda bread when you pull it out of the oven. Although this bread is best served warm, cutting into it too quickly will turn the bread gummy.

Using too much flour and too little buttermilk can cause your traditional soda bread to turn out more crumbly than it should be. Make sure to spoon and level the flour when measuring it.

Irish soda bread can be made with or without an egg. 1 egg adds richness and density. Feel free to skip it to make a slightly lighter loaf. No other changes necessary, simply leave out the egg.

The most traditional doneness test calls for thumping the hot bread in the center to hear if it's hollow-sounding. A more foolproof indication is temperature; the loaf will register 200°F to 205°F when an instant-read thermometer is inserted in the center of the bread.

If your dough is too sticky and it's impossible to work with you can add some extra flour, just a little at a time. Make sure you weigh the extra flour you add and then you'll be able to adjust the recipe correctly the next time you bake.

Try less water with your flour. Uneven heat in your oven can be the culprit – if you loaf is nicely golden on the outside but gummy or moist in the inside, it's baking too quickly on the outside. Trying reducing the temperature you're baking at and bake for a bit longer.

Your oven is too hot if it is uncooked in the center. Try lowering the temp on your oven by 25F and extending the bake time. Don't put anything on the top of the bread to aid in browning until the last few min. of cooking, and use an instant read thermometer (target temp to pull is 190F).

If your bread tastes soapy, salty, or bitter or if the crust is too dark: You might have added too much baking soda or baking powder or used self-rising flour. If your bread's texture is dry: You might have added too much baking soda, too little liquid or not baked it at high enough temperature.

This versatile bread works for any meal, but Irish soda bread is a natural for breakfast, whether simply spread with (Irish) butter and jam or alongside that hearty fry-up known as a full Irish breakfast. It's also wonderful with a cup of tea in the afternoon or as a late-night snack.

The oldest recipe for soda bread, widely syndicated from Ireland's Newry Times in 1836, says the dough was "as soft as could possibly be handled...the softer the better." Thirteen years and 180 miles down the road, the Waterford Times described it as "wetter than pie crust, too stiff to pour, but not stiff enough to ...

Can you leave soda bread dough overnight? ›

You don't have to wait hours or overnight for a rise, either. In fact, you don't even need to wait at all: Dough for Irish soda bread can go right into the oven after making.

How to Store. This delicious Traditional Irish Soda Bread is best stored at room temperature for up to 3 days. Or, place it in an airtight bag, and freeze them for up to 1 month.

However, the two loaves differ pretty significantly from there. Irish brown bread has a deep, nutty flavor because of its wheat flour and wheat bran while soda bread uses only white flour. Soda bread is slightly sweet and more scone-like while Irish brown bread is more savory with a tender interior.

Keep in mind, that if you consistently have a problem with your bread being doughy in the center, that your oven might not be exact in temperature (this is a common issue). To ensure your oven is cooking at the correct temperature, you can purchase an oven thermometer.

The crumb structure of an under proofed loaf will be tight and gummy. Because it was not given enough time to develop and trap CO2 gasses, the crumb structure will be very dense, with uneven air bubbles.

It's important to watch your dough as it rises and bakes; dough that has risen and collapsed may look just like dough that never rose at all, once it's baked. In order to correct the problem, you need to know what went wrong. Bread that is undercooked and gummy inside is bread that didn't rise sufficiently.

Banana bread is made with a very wet batter. It's important to use a tester to make sure it's fully baked. Cutting it before it is completely cooled can lead to the gummy texture. Cooling the bread to room temperature allow us the starch that gels during baking to set again.