A Stanley Family Favorite: Irish Soda Bread

This recipe and story was written by Patrick Campbell, Credit Manager at PMI-Stanley. Every St. Patrick’s Day, Patrick makes his family’s Irish Soda Bread and delivers to his coworkers dressed as a leprechaun (pictured at the end of this post.)

My good fortune in life began on Long Island having been born to an Irish immigrant mother. Every St. Paddy’s we’d wear “the green”, listen to Irish tunes, eat corned beef & cabbage, and my mom would make her Irish Soda Bread.

She’d bake loaf after loaf for the family, neighbors, work, and each child’s classroom at school. It was a family favorite and for years we thought it was a special treat that she brought with her from the home country. 

Turns out she found the recipe in the New York Daily News years ago and tweaked it to suit our tastes – adding more sugar, more butter, more eggs, more raisins and dropping the caraway seeds. In my mind this only makes the tradition better and I’ve gone on to do the same for my family, my children’s classrooms and of course the entire PMI Stanley family. One further embellishment that I’ve added is that I deliver the bread dressed in full leprechaun costume for the day.

Yes, this version is a far cry from the simple Irish Soda bread traditionally found in Ireland, but for me the transformation is also an edible history lesson of the immigrant story, how people of humble means were able to make their way to America and find prosperity.

Irish Soda Bread

Ingredients:

• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 cups raisins (plumped in warm water – possibly a dash of whiskey for good measure)
• 1 stick butter (4oz.), softened and cut into pieces
• 1.5 cups buttermilk
• 2 eggs

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in large bowl and cut in butter.
3. Add plump raisins.
4. Beat buttermilk and 2 eggs together.
5. Combine all dry ingredients until dough is formed.
6. Pour into 2 nonstick pans.
7. Cut a cross into them to release the devil and put them in the oven.
8. Bake approximately 50 minutes.
9. Remove from oven only when knife comes out clean.
10. Enjoy with your favorite Irish beer in our Adventure Stacking Beer Pint.