Welcome to another delicious edition of Tuesdays With Dorie: Baking With Julia!

This week our hosts are: My Culinary Mission & Chocolate Moosey. To see everyone who is participating & to visit their blogs, you can find us all HERE.

I have heard, seen and read about Irish Soda Bread before but before joining this group I’d never made it or tasted it for myself. I am a bit of a snob when it comes to bread. I know what I like. Even with quick breads I have particular tastes and so I was not sure how I’d feel about this one.

I decided to make it for our St.Patrick’s Day dinner which we actually had on Sunday. The ingredients could not be any more simple. 4 of them. That’s it. Hard to mess up, in my opinion. I Googled & went on Pinterest to see how they are supposed to look & forged ahead. I noticed in our book that adding dried fruit or nuts is non-traditional and not necessary.

Since I go by the book I did not add anything extra, although I would recommend it in hind sight. It took only minutes to pretty much “throw” together and about 50 minutes in the oven. I was very unsure about the whole thing, most likely because I am picky. Also, I hate buttermilk. I prefer to never use it or rather taste it.

It seemed to bake perfectly & I waited till dinner to cut it open. You are supposed to let it completely cool and it supposedly dries as hard as a rock in hours after cutting, so it’s pretty much something you eat, finish or throw out in one day. I had high hopes for this bread.

Sadly this Irish Soda Bread did not meet my expectations. It looked delicious, smelled alright but again, buttermilk is not my friend. It looked absolutely gorgeous when I cut it open, the texture was wonderful. When I tasted it, I knew I’d never be making it again, unless someone else would like for me to make it for them. 

For me, the taste was awful and I can only imagine that has to do with the 2 cups of buttermilk in it. I was disappointed that I would not enjoy eating this with our corned beef dinner. Surprisingly my husband did not even enjoy this bread. So in our home, it was a no-go. I think this bread might be an acquired taste.

I enjoyed making this bread and of course am looking forward to visiting everyone’s blogs & interacting with everyone in this great baking group!

If you would like to make this bread you can visit our hosts this week, which you can find at the top of my post, or you can purchase the book Baking With Julia.