My neighbor asked if I could make her Irish soda bread for St. Patrick’s Day.
And that was it. That was all she had to say. I was already mentally in my kitchen before she finished the sentence because that is just who I am and I have accepted it fully. Someone asks me to bake something and whatever I was doing before simply stops existing. It’s a gift. It’s also a problem. I’m at peace with both.
Irish soda bread has always been one of those recipes I genuinely love making because it’s fast, it’s unfussy, and it tastes like something a grandmother made in a farmhouse kitchen a hundred years ago. Which is basically the highest compliment I can give a recipe. No levain build, no stretch and fold, no cold proof. You mix it, you shape it, you bake it, and an hour later your whole house smells like something is deeply right with the world.
And this version uses sourdough discard which means you’re adding the benefits of some fermentation and making something beautiful at the same time. Multitasking at its finest.
Why cold butter changes everything.
Most Irish soda bread recipes have you melt the butter and mix it into the wet ingredients. That works fine. But cutting cold butter into the dry ingredients — the way you would for biscuits or pie crust — is the move that takes this from good to genuinely great.
Here’s what happens. When you work cold butter into flour in small pieces and then bake it, those little pockets of butter melt in the oven and create these tender, slightly flaky layers in the crumb. The texture becomes more biscuit-like. More traditional. More the kind of thing you eat warm with salted butter and wonder why you don’t make it every single week.
It takes an extra two minutes. It is worth every second of those two minutes.
The discard.
You can use active starter or discard for this recipe — both work. Discard will give you a slightly more pronounced tang which plays beautifully against the honey and raisins. Active starter gives a milder flavour. Either way the sourdough is doing two jobs here — adding flavour complexity and contributing to the rise alongside the baking soda. It’s not a traditional ingredient in Irish soda bread but once you add it you won’t be able to imagine it without.
If you don’t have buttermilk on hand make your own. (Honestly I never buy buttermilk. I always just make mine) Add a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar to a cup of milk, give it a stir, and let it sit for five minutes. It won’t be quite as thick as real buttermilk but it will do the job perfectly and you can’t even tell the difference.
The Recipe
Sourdough Discard Irish Soda Bread
Traditional round boule — serves 10-12
Dry Ingredients
2½ cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
Wet Ingredients
1 cup buttermilk (or 1 cup milk + 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar, sit 5 min)
½ cup sourdough discard
2 tbsp honey
1 egg
The Cold Butter
4 tbsp cold butter, grated or cut into small cubes
The Add In
¾ cup raisins (soaked in warm water 10 min, drained)
The Method
Preheat oven to 400°F
Soak raisins in warm water while you get everything else together
Whisk all dry ingredients together in a large bowl
Grate the cold butter over the dry ingredients and work them in with your fingertips
In a separate bowl whisk buttermilk, discard, honey and egg together
Pour wet into dry and mix until just combined — shaggy and rough is exactly right, do not overmix
Drain raisins, pat dry, fold in gently
In order to handle it as little as possible, I use a bowl scraper and dump mine out right onto a parchment lined sheet pan, keeping it in a dome shape
Score a deep X across the top with a sharp knife or scissors (I often find the dough is too shaggy to use a knife and kitchen scissors are my best bet)
Bake 45–55 min until deep golden — tent with foil after 30 min if the top is darkening too fast
Internal temp 190–195°F
Cool on a wire rack at least 20 min before slicing
A few things worth knowing.
Do not overmix. I cannot say this enough. Irish soda bread rises from the reaction between the baking soda and the acid in the buttermilk and discard — not from gluten development. The more you work the dough the tougher the crumb gets. Mix until it just comes together, lumps and all, and stop. Shaggy is your friend here.
Soak the raisins. Dry raisins going straight into the dough will steal moisture and leave you with dry, dense pockets. Ten minutes in warm water makes them plump and jammy and they distribute through the crumb in a way that dry raisins simply don’t.
Score the X deep. Not a decorative little scratch — a real, confident, deep score that goes almost all the way through. It’s traditional, it helps the bread bake evenly through the centre, and it looks exactly right on a rustic round boule.
Cool it before you cut it. I know. I know it’s hard. Especially when your kitchen smells the way it smells when this comes out of the oven. Twenty minutes minimum. The crumb needs to set or it’ll be gummy in the middle and you’ll be sad.
The honest review.
My neighbor got her Irish soda bread. I, of course, made a mini one for myself and ate the entire thing over the sink with a tab of melted butter. No regrets. None at all.
Make this for someone you love. Or make it for yourself and eat it warm from the oven standing at the counter with salted butter.
Both are equally valid. 🍀🧈
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