2/1/11

browned butter soda bread

browned butter soda bread

I like soda bread, I do, but not as much as the average person might? I find it a little bland, I know it's supposed to be bland by nature; a perfect vehicle rather for warm salty butter, jam or even ham. I just kicked up this soda bread up by adding in a bit of sugar and some browned butter to the top of it halfway thru baking. One could easily argue that I took the classic white soda bread paired it with the Irish version minus the caraway seeds and raisins, AND also a mixing of the browned butter soda bread minus the rosemary. Finding a happy middle in there somewhere. If you'd like a little history on the various types of soda breads and how they came about click here at epicurious. It's quite a good read and it tells you why you need to score a cross on the top of the bread before baking. What's your favorite soda bread(s)?

browned butter soda bread

browned butter soda bread

browned butter soda bread
print recipe

3 cups white all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 TB of baking soda
1 ts baking powder
1 ts cream of tartar
¼ cup of superfine sugar*
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup oatmeal
1 and ½ cups buttermilk, room temp

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease up a regular loaf pan with olive oil.
Sift all of the dry ingredients, (not the oatmeal), into a large mixing bowl. Next add in the oatmeal and mix. Add in (slowly) the buttermilk. Mix with your hands until you have a very loose dough. I gave it about 4-6 turns. You do not want to overmix as you will start the gluten process and this will give you a dense loaf. No kneading! Recipe from dawn finicane of vanillasugarblog.com Put dough into greased loaf pan. Push batter down gently into the corners. Then score a cross on the top. You’re going to cook this loaf for about 45 minutes or until a cake tester in middle comes out clean. But halfway thru baking you pour on the browned butter.

browned butter:
6 TB unsalted butter cut into TB chunks. Place in med-heat saucepan. Watch until butter is browned, has brown specks on bottom all the while whisking while it’s browning away. Just when it turns golden brown and has a nutty aroma – it’s done. Take off heat. Let cool a bit then pour on load halfway thru cooking. Ok to poke a few small tiny tiny holes in bread to let butter slide in there nice and happy.
*Note: if you don’t have superfine sugar, just run regular white sugar thru a food processer until fine.

30 comments:

  1. Great idea, it looks really great. Love that you jazzed it up

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  2. I love anything browned butter, this sounds so good!

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  3. The last soda bread I made sure didn't look like this! I like that you made it in loaf form, rather than free form. Browned butter is always a killer ingredient. Copied it already!

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  4. owwww! Love me some soda bread! Your adjusted version sounds very yummy! I just made the 101 cookbooks oat soda bread and LOVED it!

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  5. Browned butter adds so much flavour!

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  6. This is the best lookin soda bread I have ever seen!

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  7. I bet the added sugar and browned butter made it PERFECT! It looks amazingly delicious. Beautiful photos.

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  8. I love a good soda bread w/ some raisins in it. There you go again..my genius friend rocks it out with some burnt butter!

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  9. What I love about your recipe is it's super easy, of course because it's soda bread!, but you really took it up a notch with the browned butter and a little sugar. Definitely need to try this when we run out of bread around here =P

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  10. Browned butter makes everything butter. Love it!

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  11. This looks so good, I'd eat anything with browned butter;) and semi healthy to boot! love it:)

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  12. I actually kind of always dreaded having to eat soda bread on St. Paddy's Day at school. It was dry. Boring. Bland.

    I'm not a bland kind of gal.

    This is anything but. This is classy. Much more my style.

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  13. This bread looks fantastic!

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  14. i haven't had many soda breads... but this one, i like what you've done with it :)

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  15. Yeah, soda bread is sort of on the 'bland' side. But sounds like you've made it more interesting! Thanks

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  16. Nom nom nom.. Soda bread... Perfect, I have not had soda bread in .... crap, can't remember, so it's been that long.

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  17. Mmm, I like soda bread without those little raisin thingies.

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  18. Soda bread was the first bread I ever baked. I somehow thought jumping into my bread baking career should involve the hardest puck of bread known to humankind. This bread beat me but your recipe is lovely and I'd be willing to give it another shot.

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  19. i've never eaten soda bread, can you believe it? i like the plop of jam you've included, and i can only hope that there's an equally-sized plop of butter beneath it. :)

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  20. Browned butter sounds like an interesting touch. Did it give it a soft nutty flavor? My grandfather used to make soda bread at the holidays and I miss it. Good photo!

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  21. what would happen if you didn't use cream of tartar? i don't want to buy a whole jar!

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  22. I don't think I've ever had soda bread. This is the only one I've wanted to try!

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  23. I'm with you I often find it a little bland, this sounds like a good way to take care of that.

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  24. Everything you share with us is beautiful to look at and sounds delicious. The brown butter here is inspired. I hope you have a great day. Blessings...Mary

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  25. This looks amazing! Brown butter anything makes me swoon :)

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  26. I love soda bread, it makes me think I'm cooking European slash fancy even though the recipe is so simple!

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  27. oh my goodness this all looks amazing! i made brown butter for the first time a few months ago. what a deliciously daaangerous discovery

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  28. Browned butter always makes everything taste better!

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  29. This is a nice bread recipe you have here. I like that you included some soda in there.

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  30. I can't say I've ever been that won over by soda bread. Mmm, maybe I'm not smearing enough butter on it. LOL
    No matter, your version with browned butter might just convert me.

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