Gluten Free Irish Soda Bread

On St Patrick’s Day, everyone is Irish (or thinks they’re Irish). And despite the fact that I am not Irish and, until this week, had never tasted Irish Soda Bread, I decided it would be fun to give some new recipes a try.

For my soda bread fix, I used a recipe by Elizabeth Barbone of Gluten-Free Baking 101. The recipe’s main attraction is its simplicity. Described as a “quick bread”, it took about 20 minutes to prepare before going into the oven. I only made a few changes, adding cinnamon and nutmeg and leaving out the caraway seeds. Though the batter was suspicious at first (VERY thick, like a cookie dough!), I was really happy with the result. In my opinion, this version of soda bread acts a dessert or sweet breakfast cake, but can be made savory if you want to eat it as a snack (see variation ideas below). Enjoy!

Irish Soda Bread

(adapted from a recipe by Elizabeth Barbone)

Dry Ingredients:
3 1/2 cups white rice flour
1/2 cup sweet rice flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup potato starch
5 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
2 teaspoons nutmeg
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Wet Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
2 large eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
2 cups buttermilk

1 1/2 cups raisins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-inch springform pan.

In a medium bowl, whisk together dry ingredients. In a large bowl, cream butter, eggs and sugar with a hand mixer until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Add half of the dry ingredients and mix. Next, add the buttermilk. Fold in the remaining dry ingredients and raisins.

Pour batter into springform pan and spread evenly. Bake 1 to 1 1/2 hours or until a cake tester comes out clean. Allow 10 minutes to cool before eating.

For some variations on the traditional soda bread, try adding dried or fresh herbs such as rosemary, sage or thyme or caramelized onions.