Irish Raisin Soda Bread

Irish Soda Bread with Raisins is a simple lightly sweetened quick bread filled with raisins and finished with a generous sprinkling of raw sugar. You can stir a loaf of this bread together in the time it takes to brew a pot of coffee. Our day in Belfast, Ireland was about as perfect as it could be. After spending the morning exploring Belfast, we headed out to the Irish countryside in County Down where we participated in a hands-on day of Irish bread making with Tracey Jeffries and Northern Ireland Food Tours.

I couldn’t resist the opportunity to bake authentic Irish bread in the home of an Irish family. We were a small group of about 10 people and we had a wonderful day. This was part of a specialty food excursion with Princess Cruises and I can’t recommend it highly enough. We were greeted at Tracey’s home with a beautiful Irish tea complete with several varieties of bread fresh out of the oven. After we finished our tea, we made our own Irish soda bread and potato bread.

Irish Soda Bread

Do you know how easy it is to make Irish Soda Bread? It’s literally just flour, baking soda, a pinch of salt, and buttermilk added just until the texture is perfect. Irish Potato Bread simply adds leftover mashed potatoes to the equation. These are classic Irish bread recipes that have been staples in many homes for hundreds of years. I enjoyed making (and sampling!) both recipes and we all had a lot of fun learning more about these soda breads. The opportunity to spend time visiting and baking bread in an Irish home was priceless and I love that this recipe transports me back to Ireland.

Irish Soda Bread with Raisins

Irish Raisin Soda Bread comes together in under ten minutes (honestly, it’s probably closer to five minutes) and then you just have to wait while it bakes in the oven. Soda bread is typically not a sweet bread at all. However, the raisins sweeten this bread nicely and there’s a little bit of sugar in the dough as well. Also, here’s a tip that I copied as well, Tracey sprinkled her bread with a little bit of raw sugar before popping it in the oven, making it a little bit sweeter with a lovely crunch on the crust.

Irish Bannock

Today, I’m sharing the recipe for this Irish Raisin Soda Bread – or Irish Fruit Bannock, as Tracey calls it. Me, I call it the easiest Raisin Bread you can possibly make. Bannock is a variety of flat quick bread or any large, round article baked or cooked from grain. A bannock is usually cut into sections before serving. Traditionally, bannock is a quick bread fried in oil. However, Tracey’s bannock recipe was adapted for the oven, making it more like the quick breads and muffins that I usually make. For this recipe, I used a round pan, but bannock can also be baked on a sheet pan or in loaf pans. Just watch as it bakes and adjust the cooking time as needed.

Have I convinced you yet just how much we enjoyed spending a day in an Irish cottage, baking bread and having tea and coffee? My favorite bite during our tea that afternoon was this Irish Soda Bread with Raisins and I am so happy that Tracey shared the recipe with me.

This raisin bread was the first thing I made when we returned home. My boys loved this bread and it transported me back to Ireland with the first bite.