Whole Wheat Soda Bread With Raisins (Spotted Dog) Recipe (2024)

I bake this bread often, and it's wonderful if you like hearty, dense bread. We eat it for breakfast with jam or marmalade. I add some walnuts. It's very easy if you put all the dry ingredients into a bowl, get the raisins (and nuts) ready, get the egg and buttermilk ready, put some flour on a board for the last step, and then do it all at once, mixing everything with your hands, not stopping to wash.

Made this to accompany staff meal of corned beef at the restaurant. Worked out well, quick and easy. Tried it with some different dried fruits, figs, etc... very adaptable

Made this to accompany the Mississippi Roast. Followed directions and had a wonderful loaf of dense, slightly sweet bread that begged for a spread of butter.....rave reviews from those in attendance.

I like to add a couple of tablespoons of caraway seeds to my soda breads. Toast them briefly before adding them to the other dry ingredients.

Yes, it's very sticky. You did nothing wrong. The second time I made this, I wore disposable vinyl gloves. They really helped to get the dough off my fingers but even then a lot of it still stuck. Makes an awesome soda bread, though, so it's worth the hand acrobatics.

Didn’t want to search out my Ballymaloe cookbook, so I used this instead. Very authentic, not sure why folks want to monkey with a recipe handed down like this. Take a moment to actually chew the bread; no it won’t melt in your mouth (cake flour! Saints preserve us!) but all of the sweetness of the grain will become apparent along with the mouthfeel that is satisfying and filling. And who ever thought it would be a good idea to add caraway seeds, a non-Irish ingredient, to a lovely homely loaf?

Instead of raisins, I used dried cherries, which I soaked in 2 tbs of coffee bourbon (Litchfield Distillery). Boom!

My sister!

This was quite good. Just the right balance of whole wheat and bread flour. I didn’t have raisins handy so I scrounged up some sorta dry cranberries, soaked them in some whiskey for half hour. Next time I’ll double sugar and add some “non authentic” caraway seeds. I’m looking forward to eating this over the next few days v

Using a flexible bench scraper can be helpful to get all the dough bits out of the bowl and off of your fingers. I doubled this recipe and it turned out great.

I found this very plain and very chewy. It was good toasted with butter and honey, but I wouldn't make again.

Really splendid hot out of the oven with a bit of butter. I accidentally added about a teaspoon of baking powder in addition to the soda but it came out fine. Substituted kefir for buttermilk.

Increase the amount of baking soda by 1.

Lovely. Not too sweet, so the raisins enjoy their bits of spotlight. The second time I made this, I got it mixed up with Ms Shulman's other soda bread with walnuts when I did a search in the NYT Cooking app. I spent several minutes in the Twilight Zone - I could have sworn there was brown sugar in this recipe! - and so on. I finally figured it out and was much relieved that I hadn't lost my mind.

I used our remaining Christmas brandied fruit (recipe from this site), and the bread remained moist until the last bite, 4 days later. Definitely making again—a new tradition!

Very sticky dough. Used exact measurements. Did I do something wrong?

Instead of raisins, I used dried cherries, which I soaked in 2 tbs of coffee bourbon (Litchfield Distillery). Boom!

Yes, dense, and very heavy, and not just because I threw in a handful of wheat bran. Use currants. But serious stuff. I pretty much always love the bread I make and eat it straight. But this is incredible with butter. Doesn't take much, just a little. Crust did not soften with the towel, but kept it in a plastic bag after a few hours of being at room temp and cut, and that's softened. Worthwhile, and begs for a nice mug of tea.

Doubled the brown sugar and added 1/4 cups more of currants. This was amazing! Hearty with a touch of sweetness. Kept fresh for a day or two, after that I skillet fried with a pat of kerrygold, which was honestly ever better!

Did I mess up the measurements? This dough was so sticky I think I left more on my hands, bowl and counter than was in the bread! Very surprised no one mentioned that. Looks nice in the oven, but what a mess!

I added 1/2 cup chopped pecans to the raisins. next time I will add extra raisins. It is a great easy bread to make. The outside raisins do get burnt and have a bitter taste, so I just pulled them off of the slice I was eating.So good with butter and jam.

Didn’t want to search out my Ballymaloe cookbook, so I used this instead. Very authentic, not sure why folks want to monkey with a recipe handed down like this. Take a moment to actually chew the bread; no it won’t melt in your mouth (cake flour! Saints preserve us!) but all of the sweetness of the grain will become apparent along with the mouthfeel that is satisfying and filling. And who ever thought it would be a good idea to add caraway seeds, a non-Irish ingredient, to a lovely homely loaf?

This is a great recipe that turns out a hearty, tasty bread. I enjoyed it thoroughly but I think next time I will slightly decrease the wheat flour and increase the white. I also will definitely add 1/4-1/2 cup more raisins (I used golden) to give it that extra moisture. The bites with raisins are lovely and I would love more of them!