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Irish soda bread

Irish soda bread

2.7
A round loaf made with baking soda and buttermilk, often with raisins or caraway seeds
  • noun
  • /ˈaɪrɪʃ ˈsoʊdə brɛd/
translation icon : pan de soda irlandés

Examples

  • Irish soda bread my grandmother had learned to make as a girl at home.

    Fiction book (2001)
  • The recipe for Irish soda bread includes flour, baking soda, buttermilk, and sometimes caraway seeds for added flavor.

  • On St. Patrick's Day, many families bake Irish soda bread to celebrate their heritage and share with friends.

  • This is a sweet, loaf-pan version of Irish soda bread that is perfect for breakfast.

Surface Forms

Morphology

Irish + soda + bread

The phrase is a straightforward compound naming a kind of bread: 'Irish' indicates origin, 'soda' names the leavening ingredient, and 'bread' denotes the food. This regular compositional pattern makes the meaning (a type of bread from Ireland made with soda) directly inferable to a B1 learner who knows the constituent words.

Etymology

Irish soda bread comes from a simple Irish way of baking: cooks mixed baking soda with buttermilk instead of using yeast, and the soda makes the dough rise quickly. That's why the name refers to a 'traditional Irish loaf' made with soda rather than yeast.