I’m featuring Rachel Allen’s Cheesy Irish Soda Bread Scones. This soda scone recipe is a savory herb and cheese scone perfect for dunking in soup or stew.
Irish Soda Bread Scones
Here’s a recipe for St. Patrick’s Day! I’m celebrating Rachel Allen’s cookbook: Rachel’s Irish Family Foodwith acheesy version of Irish Soda Bread Scones. We enjoy dunking them in myIrish Stew.The three people in my family have no problem demolishing 8 scones between us.
If you’re familiar with breakfast scones, then you know that a typical sweet scone is made with a lot of butter and it breaks apart easily into chunks. Many times it’s dry and not all that appetizing either. This soda scone recipe is different. It’s savory instead of sweet, and it’s more like an Irish Soda Bread biscuit with chives and cheese added in.
Soda Scone Recipe
These soda scones are super easy to make, and there are just 6 ingredients. There’s no butter in the recipe, but it does utilize buttermilk. The fun part is, the instructions have you using your hands to mix. If that weirds you out, you can always enlist the kiddos to do the hand-mixing part. The dough is just patted onto a floured surface.
I use a biscuit cutter for the rounds, but you can take a drinking glass with a semi-small diameter and use that instead if you don’t have fancy cutters. Or just use whatever you can dig up that works as a quasi-cutter.
Each dough round is topped with (sharp) cheddar cheese and more chopped chives. You could get all fancy here and use a different kind of cheese and whatever herb you want (rosemary, thyme, etc.). I love to use SHARP cheddar because I enjoy the flavor. In fact, I usually purchase the sharpest cheddar I can. I love the stuff… which is why I have to banish myself from eating cheese every so often or I’ll go through a whole slab of the stuff in a couple of days time.
They bake in just 15 minutes and come out looking like this: all crazy cheesy and golden brown. They are best when hotsy totsy right out of the oven (or at least eaten the same day). We do love them just out of the oven, but leftover soda scones with leftoverIrish Stew is just about the best thing ever!
You have to be thinking of this soda scone recipe as a version of Irish Soda Bread (which is not super duper rich and flavorful by any stretch of the imagination), and just think of them as an easy “biscuit” to serve with your meal. We gobble them up, but it’s important to add your favorite flavors to the scone to fully appreciate them.
- Brown Butter Soda Bread
- Irish Soda Bread Muffins
- Breakfast Irish Soda Bread
- Irish Soda Bread with Raisins and Caraway
Cheesy Soda Scones
A savory scone topped with herbs and cheese. They're perfect with soup or stew.
Recipe Details
Prep Time: 10 minutes mins
Cook Time: 15 minutes mins
Total Time: 25 minutes mins
Course: Bread
Cuisine: Irish
Keyword: cheese, scones, soda bread
Servings: 8 servings (1 scone per serving)
Calories: 134kcal
Author: RecipeGirl.com (re-printed with permission from Harper Collins and adapted slightly from Rachel's Irish Family Food)
Ingredients
- 1¾ cups all purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ tablespoon finely chopped chives (plus a few extra)
- ½ + ⅓ cup buttermilk (measure ½, then measure ⅓)
- ⅓ cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 475 degrees. Flour a baking sheet.
Sift the flour, salt and baking soda into a bowl. Mix in ½ tablespoon chives. Make a well in the center and pour the buttermilk (both) into the well. Using one hand, with your fingers outstretched like a claw, stir in a full circular movement from the center to the outside of the bowl to form a dough. The dough should be soft, though not too wet and sticky.
When the dough comes together, turn it out onto a well floured surface. Pat the dough until it is about ¾ inch thick. Cut into 8 rounds and place on the prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle each round of dough with cheese and additional chives.
Bake for 15 minutes, or until golden and sounding hollow when tapped on the bottom. Turn the oven down to 400 after 10 minutes if they are already golden. Remove from the baking sheet and place on a wire rack to cool slightly before serving.
Notes
- Change up the cheese and/or herbs as you see fit (think: Swiss, Gouda, rosemary, thyme!)
Nutrition
Serving: 1serving, Calories: 134kcal, Carbohydrates: 22g, Protein: 5g, Fat: 3g, Saturated Fat: 1g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.2g, Monounsaturated Fat: 1g, Cholesterol: 7mg, Sodium: 271mg, Potassium: 67mg, Fiber: 1g, Sugar: 1g, Vitamin A: 97IU, Vitamin C: 0.1mg, Calcium: 66mg, Iron: 1mg
Disclosure: There are Amazon affiliate links included within this post.
FAQs
And finally, don't immediately cut into the Fast Irish Soda bread when you pull it out of the oven. Although this bread is best served warm, cutting into it too quickly will turn the bread gummy.
Why is my Irish soda bread hard? ›
Too much kneading will create a hard dense crumb on the bread. Rule of thumb with no yeast breads, the less kneading the softer the crumb. Score the bread. This is an important step to helping to ensure that the center is cooked.
How long can soda bread sit before baking? ›
(Some recipes call for yeast and kneading, but know this isn't required.) You don't have to wait hours or overnight for a rise, either. In fact, you don't even need to wait at all: Dough for Irish soda bread can go right into the oven after making.
How do you know when Irish soda bread is done? ›
The most traditional doneness test calls for thumping the hot bread in the center to hear if it's hollow-sounding. A more foolproof indication is temperature; the loaf will register 200°F to 205°F when an instant-read thermometer is inserted in the center of the bread.
What do you do if your Irish Soda Bread dough is too sticky? ›
If your dough is too sticky and it's impossible to work with you can add some extra flour, just a little at a time. Make sure you weigh the extra flour you add and then you'll be able to adjust the recipe correctly the next time you bake.
How do you fix gummy bread dough? ›
Try less water with your flour. Uneven heat in your oven can be the culprit – if you loaf is nicely golden on the outside but gummy or moist in the inside, it's baking too quickly on the outside. Trying reducing the temperature you're baking at and bake for a bit longer.
Can you over knead Irish soda bread? ›
Barely any kneading is necessary, but if you overknead it, it makes for a pretty tough bread. Start by mixing the flour, baking soda, salt, and sugar together. Dice up the cold butter and cut it into the flour mixture with a pastry cutter or the tips of your fingers.
Is there a difference between soda bread and Irish soda bread? ›
Sweeter Soda Bread
On this side of the Atlantic, what we call "Irish soda bread" is more rich and sweet, usually studded with raisins and caraway seeds. These cakey, scone-like loaves often include eggs and butter for tenderness and more flavor.
How dry should soda bread dough be? ›
The oldest recipe for soda bread, widely syndicated from Ireland's Newry Times in 1836, says the dough was "as soft as could possibly be handled...the softer the better." Thirteen years and 180 miles down the road, the Waterford Times described it as "wetter than pie crust, too stiff to pour, but not stiff enough to ...
Should you refrigerate Irish soda bread? ›
How to Store. This delicious Traditional Irish Soda Bread is best stored at room temperature for up to 3 days. Or, place it in an airtight bag, and freeze them for up to 1 month.
It's important not to use too much baking soda in recipes, as it can result in a metallic, soapy flavor. It is much more powerful than baking powder – you only need about 1/4 teaspoon baking soda per cup of flour to leaven baked goods.
What do you eat with Irish soda bread? ›
Serving suggestions
Fruit: Eat it plain with a cup of your favorite sliced fruit. Cheese: Make a cheese board, and serve the bread alongside a variety of soft and hard cheeses. Soup: This bread makes a great dunking companion for your favorite hearty soup. Sandwiches: Use slices of Irish soda bread to make sandwiches.
Why is my Irish soda bread not cooked in the middle? ›
Why does my Soda Bread not cook in the middle? The reason why your soda bread isn't cooking properly is very often that your oven isn't calibrated correctly. Check your oven or adjust your temperature with the next try until you get it right. Baking is as much an art as it is a science.
What went wrong with my soda bread? ›
If your bread tastes soapy, salty, or bitter or if the crust is too dark: You might have added too much baking soda or baking powder or used self-rising flour. If your bread's texture is dry: You might have added too much baking soda, too little liquid or not baked it at high enough temperature.
What's the difference between Irish bread and Irish soda bread? ›
Irish brown bread has a deep, nutty flavor because of its wheat flour and wheat bran while soda bread uses only white flour. Soda bread is slightly sweet and more scone-like while Irish brown bread is more savory with a tender interior.
Why is my soda bread so doughy in the middle? ›
Keep in mind, that if you consistently have a problem with your bread being doughy in the center, that your oven might not be exact in temperature (this is a common issue). To ensure your oven is cooking at the correct temperature, you can purchase an oven thermometer.
Is gummy bread overproofed? ›
The crumb structure of an under proofed loaf will be tight and gummy. Because it was not given enough time to develop and trap CO2 gasses, the crumb structure will be very dense, with uneven air bubbles.
Can you over knead Irish Soda Bread? ›
Barely any kneading is necessary, but if you overknead it, it makes for a pretty tough bread. Start by mixing the flour, baking soda, salt, and sugar together. Dice up the cold butter and cut it into the flour mixture with a pastry cutter or the tips of your fingers.
Why is my bread machine bread gummy? ›
It's important to watch your dough as it rises and bakes; dough that has risen and collapsed may look just like dough that never rose at all, once it's baked. In order to correct the problem, you need to know what went wrong. Bread that is undercooked and gummy inside is bread that didn't rise sufficiently.
