Irish Soda Bread ~ Our favorite recipe plus one with vegan adjustments

“May flowers always line your path and sunshine light your day.  May songbirds serenade you every step along the way.May a rainbow run beside you in a sky that’s always blue. And may happiness fill your heart each day your whole life through.”

                             ~old Irish Blessing

Two things I do every St. Patrick’s Day are: Plant sweet peas and make Irish soda bread.

It is a great superstition that is it lucky to plant peas on St. Patrick’s Day. I need all the luck I can get and will be planting both sweet peas and spring peas this afternoon!

 

The hardest part for Lydia becoming vegan is homemade baked goods…which kind of stinks for someone whose mom loves to bake.  Christmas was really hard for her with all of all the cookies and cakes, so I decided for the New Year I would try and create really tasty vegan baked goods.

After some not so good attempts on this soda bread, I finally have something we all liked.

Below is the recipe for the original bread (because it is still my favorite) and beside it are the adjustments made. It mixes up very fast. The texture and the little bit of sweetness just make it so special.  Everyone should have a little sweetness in their life!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day (…now go plant your peas!)

1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg, lightly beaten (vegan – remove)
2 cups buttermilk (vegan – 2 TBSP apple cider vinegar + 2 C almond milk, combined & let sit for a minute)
1/4 cup butter, melted (vegan – 1/3 cup canola oil)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan.Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and baking soda. Blend egg and buttermilk together, and add all at once to the flour mixture. *If making the vegan version, blend almond milk, and oil and add all at once to the flour mixture. Mix just until moistened. (The batter should be a bit lumpy if doing non-vegan version.  It will come together and be more smooth after adding butter.) Stir in melted butter.  Pour into prepared pan.Bake for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the bread comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. Wrap in foil for several hours, or overnight, for best flavor.  We can never wait that long.  Mine only sits for about 2 hours or so.