Orange Cranberry Soda Bread (2024)

Ever year I make Irish Soda Bread for St. Patrick’s Day. And every year, I remember how good it is and ask myself why I only make it once a year. I wanted to start making different variations with added citrus or fruits, which is what I have here with this Orange Cranberry Soda Bread!

A perfect blend of a little sweat bread dough, a little sweet from the dried cranberries, and the fresh citrus from orange zest. The finishing touch is spreading some homemade orange honey butter on the slice!

Why it’s called soda bread

So when I was young, I was really excited when I heard we would eat soda bread. I actually thought it was called soda bread because it was made with soda. Maybe Sprite? Maybe club soda? How cool! Yea, no lol.

You can imagine how bummed my little self was when I learned it’s called soda bread not because it’s made with bubbly drinking soda, but because the leavening ingredient is baking soda. Cue the sad trombone sound.

But even though there’s no wildly exciting secret ingredient, soda breads are a deliciously sweet bread that are so easy to make. Their unique flavor and simplicity in making it is why I knew I needed to make more variations, and not always make just a traditional Irish Soda Bread.

If you want to read a little more about soda bread and like history, you’ll want to check out this article from The Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread. It notes that the earliest records of soda ash in breads is the American Indians. The Irish began using it in their breads in the 1830’s, when yeast wasn’t as easy to come by for their bread.

Ingredients

Here’s what you need to have on hand to make the orange cranberry soda bread! In the photo above there should be an egg too, I totally forgot to grab it from the fridge for the pic, sorry egg!

• Salted butter
• All purpose flour
• White sugar
• Baking soda
• Dried cranberries
• An orange
• An egg
• Buttermilk
• Salt

Look at this gorgeous baked bread! I love the rustic look of a soda bread. It’s not supposed to be smooth and perfect. It’s supposed to have ridges, and peaks, nooks and crannies, and the “X” cut across the top. I look at it and see something warm, comforting, and homey.

Even though this has sweet cranberries and the orange zest, this isn’t sweet like a scone. I think it has just enough sweet to be a nice treat, while still maintaining it’s ‘bread’ qualities and not venturing over into scone or muffin territory.

Orange Honey Butter

Now let’s talk about the butter.

You can use regular salted butter on this, but if you want to really take this to the next level you’ll want to make my Orange Honey Butter. You only need:

• 3 tablespoons salted butter, softened (not melted, just nice and soft and easy to stir)
• 1 teaspoon fresh squeezed orange juice
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 1/2 teaspoon orange zest

Mix everything together, and spread on this bread or things like pancakes, waffles, biscuits, or French toast!

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