If you’re craving homemade bread but you don’t have time for a big fuss, Irish Soda Bread is the way to go! It only requires a few simple ingredients and bakes up crusty on the outside, with a soft, fluffy interior. This Honey & Blue Cheese Soda Bread has a few more ingredients, but just as simple as the traditional version.
Like any quick bread, there is no yeast. In other words, no long hours of waiting for the dough to proof. Instead, all the leavening in this recipe comes from baking soda and buttermilk. The buttermilk reacts with the baking soda to provide the bread’s height and it adds a delightful nutty flavor!
Malted flour is not a flour that is available at your local market. Malted flour is a combination of flour and malted milk powder. The malted milk powder gives a creamy, milky, and sweet essence to the bread. It rounds out the flavors already there. The bread bakes at a lower temperature and for a longer period of time to avoid killing the malt. For best results, use a strong blue cheese as the flavor will mellow as it bakes into the bread.
Add a little whisking and 40 minutes in the oven and you will have warm, freshly baked bread. Serve with a bowl of hearty Irish Coddle.
Honey & Blue Cheese Soda Bread
Ingredients
- 2 cups whole wheat flour
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup malted milk powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2¼ teaspoons baking soda
- 7 ounces strong blue cheese
- 2½ tablespoons honey
- 3/4 cup walnuts
- 1¾ cups milk
- 1 tablespoon plain Greek yogurt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375°F. Grease and flour a round cake pan and set aside.
- Whisk the flours, malted milk powder, salt and baking soda in a bowl. Crumble in the blue cheese and mix through the flour. Don’t over mix as you want to retain little pockets of blue cheese in your mix.
- Form a well in the middle of the flour mixture and add the honey, milk, and yogurt. Using a rubber spatula gently fold in the flour and walnuts, making sure not to over mix.
- Spoon in the batter into the prepared cake pan. Use your hands to gently form a rounded loaf.
- Bake the soda bread for 30-40 minutes. The bread is cooked when the tip of a knife comes out clean when inserted into the centre.
- Transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool before slicing.