Description:
This recipe is a delicious twist on the classic Irish Soda Bread, perfect for Thanksgiving or Christmas breakfast, brunch or visiting. The bread has a lovely texture and taste, similar to cranberry scones.
Ingredients:
2 cups of fresh or frozen cranberries
4 ½ cups of flour
1 ½ cups sugar (divided)
2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
Dash of salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ cup softened butter
2 tablespoons lime zest (optional for a festive look)
2 cups buttermilk
½ cup heavy cream
1 large egg
Coarse sugar for dusting
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
To make 1 large loaf, use a 10-12 inch cast iron pan or ovenproof skillet with 2-inch or better sides. To make 2 loaves, use 2 smaller cast iron skillets, ovenproof pans, or 2 cake pans.
Cut a big enough circle of parchment paper out to line both the bottom and the sides of your pan(s).
Toss cranberries with ¼ cup of the sugar and set aside.
Whisk the flour, 1 ¼ cups of the sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in a large bowl until blended.
Add in the softened butter, lime zest, buttermilk, heavy cream, egg, and the cranberries that were tossed with the sugar to the dry ingredients and stir gently until incorporated – do not over mix.
Scrape mixture into pan(s) then “let the faeries out” by making a shallow “x” with a sharp knife in the center of the dough.
Sprinkle coarse decorator sugar or regular sugar overtop your loaf/loaves (it makes for a nice crust) and bake for one hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a toothpick or skewer inserted comes out dry. For smaller loaves, check after 45 minutes, however, most likely it will take an hour to bake.
Once a wooden skewer inserted comes out not “wet” it is done. It can be moist crumbs…just not batter.
Cool a bit then flip out of the pan(s), peel off the parchment paper and allow the bread to cool on a cooling rack.
If you intend to travel with a hot loaf, wrap in foil however, leave the top open to prevent the crust from getting moist from the heat being trapped.
Serve warm with butter.
Notes:
For sweeter berries, slice the cranberries in half and toss them with a little sugar before adding to the batter.
For a sweeter loaf overall, add in an additional 2-4 tablespoons sugar to the dough.
Since this recipe yields a large loaf, often when I am making this for someone, I set aside 25-30% of the batter to make a small loaf for my family.
This bread can be stored for days as long as it is wrapped up tightly. To warm it up, just pop a slice in the microwave for 20-30 seconds.
Nutritional values are per serving (10 servings in total).