Irish Buttermilk Soda Bread

Preheat a conventional oven (no fan) to 230°C with a rack in the middle position. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and leave it on the counter. Reserve 10 g of the flour for flouring and dusting, and put the remaining 500 g in a large bowl. Have a cooling rack ready for cooling the bread completely later.

Add the baking soda and salt to the 500 g flour in the bowl. Mix thoroughly with a whisk or spoon so the baking soda is evenly distributed throughout the flour, without clumps. Briefly stir the buttermilk before measuring it.

Make sure the oven is fully heated before combining the wet and dry ingredients. Pour all the buttermilk into the flour and stir with a spoon for about 1–2 minutes, just until the ingredients come together and no dry flour pockets remain. The dough should be soft, slightly sticky and uneven, but able to come together into one mass. Do not knead it, and do not try to smooth it with prolonged mixing, as the bread may become tough.

Lightly flour the counter with part of the reserved flour and turn the dough out onto it. With floured hands, briefly gather it into a round loaf about 20 cm in diameter and about 4 cm high, then transfer it to the prepared baking sheet. Dust the top with the remaining flour and use a sharp knife to make two crossing cuts from edge to edge, about 3 cm deep; do not cut through the base of the loaf. Proceed to baking immediately.

Place the baking sheet in the preheated oven and bake for 15 minutes at 230°C, then reduce the temperature to 200°C and bake for about 25–30 minutes more. The crust should be distinctly golden and the cuts wide open. A skewer inserted into the center of the loaf through a cut should come out without sticky raw dough; a few dry crumbs are fine. If the center needs more baking, bake for about 5–10 minutes more, loosely covering the top with aluminum foil if it is already well browned.

Remove the bread from the baking sheet and place it on a rack without covering it, so steam can escape freely from underneath too. Cool for about 2 hours, until the loaf is completely cool; if it is still warm, wait longer. Only once it has cooled completely, use a serrated knife to cut it into 12 slices, so the soft crumb is not compressed during slicing.