Baking Irish

I’m not exactly an adventuresome cook—I prefer to stick with a few dishes that get repeat requests, rather than tempt the cooking gods by trying out new stuff. But inspired by Morag Prunty’s Irish novel, Recipes for a Perfect Marriage, (see September 13 post), I decided to try something I’d never made before: Irish soda bread.

Problem: however tasty-sounding on the page, Prunty’s recipe lacked a certain precision. (When you’re trying something new, and the recipe calls for “enough buttermilk to make a soft dough,” and bake in a “hot oven,” you know you’re in trouble.) So recently, determined to make the real McCoy, I turned to Darina Allen, famed Irish chef and author of “Ballymaloe Cooking School Cookbook.” For one thing, she uses exact measurements and oven temperatures. For another, she’s definitely a purist, since her bread includes only four ingredients: flour, soda, salt, and buttermilk.

As much as I wanted to make the classic version of Irish soda bread, though, I stared at the recipe, dismayed. Darina’s seemed about as basic as, well, hardtack. (You know, the cracker-like rations sailors ate because they had a shelf life of several years. Without preservatives.) So I summoned up my Inner Creative Cook and threw in a few extra ingredients I’d seen in Prunty’s book: raisins, butter, and a spoon of honey. And getting into the spirit of the thing, I didn’t measure any of them.

In keeping with Darina’s classic, purist vision, I patted the dough into a round. Then wielding the sharpest knife I could find, I carved the traditional cross into the loaf, and slid it into the oven.

The result? A bit funny looking; the moistened raisins had incorporated too much moisture into the dough, creating surface pockmarks. So instead of the smooth round I’d seen at our local bakery around St. Patrick’s Day, my loaf looked like it had a terminal case of bread acne. But happily, my husband was unfazed by its less-than-stellar appearance, and cut into it eagerly. And though he has never passed judgment on my cooking, when I coaxed him for a critique, he ventured that it could be a bit sweeter. “But I can always spread some honey on it,” he added loyally. I was further cheered when he finished off the loaf in a few days (instead of sticking it in the back of the fridge and “pretending” he’d forgotten about it). Apparently, it had tasted better than it looked.

So, like any recipe you’re experimenting with, or heck, trying anything new in your life, my advice is, start with classic, go wild with a few extras, and don’t skimp on the sweetness. And when you’re making Irish soda bread, just before you slide your loaf into the oven, don’t forget Darina’s secret: after you’ve scored a cross in the dough, prick in each corner “to let the fairies out!”