When I was in grade school I was a Girl Scout. My mom was one of the co-leaders of my troop. We occasionally did special cooking nights, often centered around a cultural theme. For example, we had a Mexican theme where we made tacos.
What does this have to do about Irish Soda Bread? Well, one year our theme was Irish cooking, and we made Corned Beef & Cabbage and Irish Soda Bread.
I was in the group that made the soda bread. I had been looking forward to it because we were using my mom’s recipe and it was a favorite of mine. I’m sure I even exclaimed to the group how good it was! We carefully measured our ingredients, mixed them together, and waited for the bread to bake.
When we finally sat down to eat our Irish feast, I eagerly tried the soda bread. It was awful! We concluded someone accidentally put in a TABLESPOON of salt instead of a TEASPOON. Yuck! Needless to day, it was inedible.
I still make my mom’s Irish Soda Bread for St. Patrick’s Day most years, and every time I measure the salt I think about the awful bread we had that year. This year I tweaked the recipe slightly and I am happy with the results. I hope you like it too!
Irish Soda Bread
- 3/4 cup currants
- 2 cups sifted flour
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 3 tablespoons shortening
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
- 1 large egg
- 1 cup buttermilk
Preheat oven to 400°F. Lightly grease an 8-inch cake pan. Rinse and drain the currants.
Sift together the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Cut in the shortening and butter. Stir in the currants.
Beat the egg lightly and combine with the buttermilk. Add to the dry mixture and stir quickly, blending only until the flour is moistened.
Turn the dough into the cake pan. Bake until a tester comes out clean, 20 – 25 minutes.
Cut into wedges and serve warm with plenty of butter.
Serves 8
From Scratch 
Fun memories! That soda bread was truly awful! But we had a good time anyway. I am making it tomorrow as I do most years.
I enjoyed reading about your girl scout irish soda bread – what a memory and I am sure you are very careful every time you measure the salt out for the recipe. Your soda bread looks beautiful, Karen. I bet the buttermilk adds such a good flavor. I also like that you used both shortening and butter – I bet that’s why yours looks fluffy and moist.
I was a girl scott leader for my daughter, and we used to make ethnic dishes to celebrate certain countries! It was such fun, and our girls loved baking. I also did Cub Scouts…but we won’t talk about that!! Funny, you will always associate your moms bread with that salty version! Nice post, Karen!