Made this to go along with our St. Patrick's Day meal of Beef and Irish Stout Stew and Irish Champ (both excellent recipes from this site). This was my first time making Irish Soda Bread, so I felt like perhaps I didn't do it quite the justice it deserved. I did half the recipe. The dough was drier than perhaps it should've been, but I knew from experience making scones that I didn't want to over knead the dough, so I made the loaf the best I could and baked it. I think it was good, but maybe could be better with a bit more practice on my part.

This is a delicious bread, quick and easy to make. I followed the recipe as listed and the bread turned out a lot lighter than other Irish Soda Bread recipes I have tried. This was a pleasant surprise since, given the quantity of whole wheat flour in the recipe, I had expected it to be more dense. If you are looking for the sweet style of Irish Soda Bread, look elsewhere. But if you are looking for a tasty simple loaf give this a try. By the way, I don't know what the picture that accompanies this recipe is of, but I doubt it is of this predominantly whole-grain bread.

It tastes great but it looks nuthin like the pic. Im stil new but i did everythin the recipe said. I wanted to make it for a home ec project but I don't think i should since it doesnt look like it should. Is it just me? <:)

My boyfriend and I really enjoyed this, it goes great with any kind of thick soup or stew! The bread didn't seem to rise enough, although maybe that was just me..it's good though!

Thank you for this wonderful recipe. I followed the recipe as written with the following changes: used powdered buttermilk as I had it in the pantry, added about 1 1/2 cups of raisins, and I liberally sprinkled the tops of each loaf with granulated sugar before baking. This made two loaves which quickly disappeared at work with rave reviews and requests for the recipe.

A great bread that's nigh impossible to screw up. I replaced the single cup of regular milk with the rest of the buttermilk I'd bought (since I don't use milk aside from for cooking) with no problems.

Took to a St. Patty's day party. Made one with raisins and fennel and one without. Both were good but the raisin/fennel went the fastest.

Sooooo yummy! Moist and buttery, I have found my favorite Irish soda bread recipe! I out in more all purpose flour instead of wheat.

SORRY, IT WAS TERRIBLE! TWO BIG BRICKS! AND THE PICTURE LOOKED NOTHING LIKE WHAT I MADE! I REALLY THINK THE WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR WAS WHAT MADE IT A FLOP.

Pretty good, but I was hoping for something that rivaled the "Katie O'Reilly" brand that is sold in stores around St. Patrick's day and has very similar ingredients. I added an egg to help hold the loaf together, and changed some of the whole wheat flour to oat flour, which unfortunately, made it more crumbly. If you don't have buttermilk (which can be difficult to find in stores), you can go a couple of different directions. You can follow the advice of one of the other reviewers and use vinegar milk. (Not the tastiest option.) You can buy powdered buttermilk in bulk food stores, which is what I used, and is also not terribly tasty. Yogurt mixed with a bit of milk to loosen it up is a good option, although lowfat yogurt can also be a bit bland. The tastiest substitute is probably sour cream, but also the fattiest. I added 2 cups of currents, which gave it a nice sweet flavor. I think next time I'll add more oil or butter to give the loaf more flavor.

I have several recipes for soda bread. This one is a little drier than the one I was usually make. I added raisins for a little texture and caraway seed because I like the flavor. All in all a good bread. Co-workers and my Irish-Italien husband liked it. When it's a day old try topping it with the cinnimon honey butter that's also on this site.

Mine came out awful! I think it must have been that my WW flour was too old or something. Even the dough didn't act right! I'll try again sometime with fresh whole wheat flour. MIne came out like big flour bricks! Probably my fault though, so I'll leave the rating at 4 stars and just warn folks to use fresh ingredients! (I actually WAS trying to use up that old flour! Oh well!)

Five stars for simplicity. I used all-purpose white and special-for-bread whole wheat flour and this turned out great. Used fake buttermilk - 1 tbsp vinegar for each cup milk and let sit 10 minutes on counter. Stirred about 1 cup of raisins into the flour mix before the milk to make raisin bread. Tasty and chewy, great warm with jam and honey.

It tastes good, but I like another soda bread recipe better. I don't know if I did something wrong, or if the dough was supposed to be so sticky. Might want to add a little extra flour.

this recipe produced two fine loaves of very flavorful bread Prep couldn't have been easier...a good project for kids. It had the "bite" from the soda and the buttermilk that makes the bread so wonderful. I shipped it to two friends and it arrived in perfect condition and was enjoyed by all!

Because the recipe allows for some variation, I used some coconut milk that I had sitting around. I also added cinnamon and 1/4 t extra baking soda. The bread turned out great.

Excellent! This bread tastes exactly as I remember it in Ireland; great warm with butter and jam. Easy to make. Thanks for sharing it.