Grandma O’Connor’s Irish Soda Bread

#RealPeopleRealFood

Butcher Boy’s latest in our guest blog series is here. We highlight our customers and their recipes, inspirations, and enjoyment of great food. Follow #RealPeopleRealFood on Instagram for our latest posts and updates from previous contributors.

Our March guest blogger is Kathleen O’Connor Potter from Bradford, MA. Kathleen shares her Irish grandmother’s Irish Soda Bread recipe direct from County Kerry, Ireland. Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day.

My Grandparents, Jack and Ethel O’Connor, were born and grew up in Dingle Bay, County Kerry, Ireland.

Jack left Ireland in 1919 when he was 23, all alone. I often think about his bravery — if he had not had the courage to leave everything he knew behind — where would we all be now? After he found work, he sent for Grandma. They married and settled in Springfield, Massachusetts. Grandma was very proud of the fact that they were not matched by the matchmakers who arranged marriages in Ireland — they were in love. They became part of a community of Irish immigrants who yearned for the old country while celebrating their new life in America.

Jack and Ethel raised their four children in the Hungry Hill (Irish) section of Springfield, where they faithfully attended Our Lady of Hope Church and observed the holy days with feasts of simple food, carefully prepared for a house full of grandchildren.

This is what I remember most about my grandmother’s immaculate kitchen — there was always a warm loaf of Irish soda bread on the counter.

Many traditions and cultures have come together in the persons of my two marvelously diverse granddaughters. And now I am the grandmother who will be baking the soda bread and celebrating the Irish in them, with Ethel and Jack looking on from the “other side.”

Grandma O’Connor’s Irish Soda Bread

• 4 cups flour
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 6 tablespoons sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup raisins

Sift together flour, baking powder and baking soda

Cream together butter and sugar – add buttermilk and eggs and blend

Add wet ingredients to dry and blend

Stir in raisins

Place in greased tins (I use small cast iron frying pans) – and bake at 350º for one hour (test for doneness after 40 minutes) – After about 15 minutes in the oven – I brush the tops of the loaves with a mixture of egg and water and cut a cross in the top with a knife (the dough is too wet to do this when it first goes into the oven). Baking time can vary depending on how hot your oven is.

Makes two loaves.

ps: We are a no caraway seed family.

Download and print the recipe here.