Irish Soda Bread Biscuits

Super-easy, super-cute Irish soda bread biscuits are baked up in a cast iron skillet, creating sweet little rolls in half the time of loaf soda bread. It’s homemade bread on a weeknight!

It’s March — hello, March, the month of sweet, sweet Spring — which means that it’s soda bread time!

I do enjoy baking all the yeasty breads, like baguettes and focaccias, but you cannot argue with the beautiful simplicity of the soda bread. Just four basic ingredients — flour, salt, baking soda, and buttermilk — and you’re good to create a rustic loaf that your tummy will love, even if your eyes don’t (although I secretly love all the lumpy bumpy crevices of soda bread).

Just a handful of ingredients, and if you break the dough down into adorbs soda bread minis, you’ll have fresh, homemade bread in half an hour.

Thirty minutes, friends! Fresh bread {{applause}}!

Americans like to add all sorts of things like fruit to soda bread, which is pretty far from the original plain-Jane, but totally awesome, Irish soda bread. And so I guess it’s my one-quarter Irish heritage speaking when I say, no fruit!

But, still, my 100% American birthright and recipe-buttinsky ways can’t leave well enough alone: I like to add seeds to my soda bread minis.

Fennel and caraway seeds are soooo lovely together, and I mix them right into the dough. But first, I crush them a bit in a mortar and pestle, and enjoy the herby aromas. Fennel and caraway are botanical relatives — the same family as carrots — and their flavors pair perfectly. Buttered soda bread minis with little bites of fragrant seeds — hooo mama, tasty goodness, right there.

More Irish Soda Bread Goodness

If you need further proof that I love Irish soda bread beyond reasonable reason, here’s evidence from my recipe archives:

• Traditional Irish Soda Bread (dig the primitive blog photos, lol)
• Irish Brown Bread (more blog photo whuuh? but the bread is totes yummy)
• Irish Soda Bread … with Honey Mustard Beer Butter (thaaat’s right: honey mustard beer butter)
• Honey Oat Soda Bread (the soda bread for people who don’t think they’ll like soda bread)

Who needs five recipes for soda bread on their blog? I do!! Because soda bread is all the things of the world when you want homemade bread and you want homemade bread fast, without all the waiting and all the kneading and all the rolling. And these soda bread biscuits? Twice as fast as a loaf. Their stubby cuteness fits in a skillet, and you feel like a clever bread baker when you see said skillet lined with these golden rolls.

What you can’t see in the photo above is the puff of steamy, bread-scented goodness that came out of the biscuits whenever I broke one open (while indelicately burning my fingers because I was too impatient to wait for them to cool). And I may or may not have downed one entirely while photographing them. I admit nothing.

Serve them warm with lots of butter alongside a big bowl of soup or stew, as the culinary gods intended.

Karen xo
 

Print Recipe

5 from 1 vote

Skillet Irish Soda Bread Minis

Prep Time10 minutes mins

Cook Time30 minutes mins

Total Time40 minutes mins

Servings: 5 to 6 mini breads

Author: Karen Gibson

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons butter
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons crushed fennel and caraway seeds
• 1 1/2 to 2 cups buttermilk

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 400°F. Butter a 10" cast iron skillet with 1 tablespoon of the butter.
• In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, salt, baking soda, and seeds. Make a shallow well in the center of the bowl and pour in 1 1/2 cups of the buttermilk. Stir with a wooden spoon, incorporating all of the flour into the buttermilk. Add more buttermilk a tablespoon at a time, if necessary, until the dough comes together (but don't overwork).
• Turn out the dough onto the counter. It will be craggly, stringy, and slightly sticky. Wet both hands, and gather up the dough and knead quickly into a flattened disk. Divide the dough in 5 or 6 more-or-less equal pieces, and work each into a ball. Arrange the dough balls in the skillet, without packing too tightly.
• Bake for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, melt the remaining butter in a small pot. At the 15 minute mark, the tops should begin to brown. Remove and brush each roll with the melted butter. Return to oven and bake for 5 to 10 minutes more. The minis will be golden with browned peeks. Remove, and let rest a bit before serving, or until they can be handled.
• Split open and slather the insides with more butter. Inhale the baked bread goodness, and enjoy.

Nutritional information, if shown, is provided as a courtesy only, and is not to be taken as medical information or advice. The nutritional values of your preparation of this recipe are impacted by several factors, including, but not limited to, the ingredient brands you use, any substitutions or measurement changes you make, and measuring accuracy.