Bread, Soda Farls
The bread that defines the Ulster fry. Same dough as a soda loaf - the difference is entirely the cooking method: flattened, cut into quarters and cooked on a dry griddle, never baked. A griddle has no lid and no top heat, so a deep round would burn on the base and stay raw in the middle. Quartering is the same problem the cross on a loaf solves, solved harder. In Northern Ireland "soda bread" ALWAYS means this, never the oven loaf.
Baked Goods · Breads · Breakfast · Irish
The bread that defines the Ulster fry. Same dough as a soda loaf - the difference is entirely the cooking method: flattened, cut into quarters and cooked on a dry griddle, never baked. A griddle has no lid and no top heat, so a deep round would burn on the base and stay raw in the middle. Quartering is the same problem the cross on a loaf solves, solved harder. In Northern Ireland “soda bread” ALWAYS means this, never the oven loaf.
Ingredients
- 125 g plain (all-purpose) flour
- 120 g wholemeal flour
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- about 240 ml buttermilk
Directions
Key ingredients
Baking Soda & Baking Powder · Buttermilk
- Mix to a soft dough with the same rules as any soda bread: fast, minimal, stop early. The reaction starts the instant the buttermilk hits the soda and is already dying - every minute of kneading is leavening thrown away.
- Form a round and flatten to about 1.5 cm / 1/2 inch. Cut into four farls.
- Dry griddle or heavy skillet, medium heat or just under. NOT hot.
- Cook about 15 minutes per side, until deeply golden. Yes - about 30 minutes total.
- To serve as part of a fry: split the cooked farl horizontally through the middle and fry the cut faces in the bacon and sausage fat until crisp and glossy.
Notes
THE cook-time warning
30 minutes total. These are dense, slow, LOW-HEAT breads - not pancakes. Every recipe telling you three minutes a side is making something thinner than a farl. Too hot and too fast is the single most common way home cooks wreck these: burnt outside, raw paste inside. If your farl is browning quickly, the pan is too hot. Turn it down and wait.
Farl = a quarter
From the Scots “fardel” - a fourth part, a three-cornered cake. Farl is a SHAPE, not a recipe; it applies to soda farls and potato farls alike.
Split and fried
Splitting and frying the cut faces in the fat is what makes it fry bread rather than table bread, and it is the best bite on the plate. Honesty note: this practice is well-attested but poorly documented in citable sources - everyone does it, nobody wrote it down properly. Stated as practice, not sourced fact.
Measures
The gram weights are my conversions from a US cup-measure source (AP flour ~125 g/cup, wholemeal ~120 g/cup, buttermilk ~240 ml/cup). Approximate - trust the dough, not the scale.