Me and Soda bread

For years I've wanted to make Soda bread for my Irish husband. All my attempts so far have turned out mostly too heavy, sometimes too dry, and often underbaked - you name it, I baked a version of it. I collect soda bread recipes and occasionally compare them to try to understand how they work and to see if I can hit on a successful one, as they all seem to differ slightly. A couple of weeks ago I tried Lorraine Pascale's Soda Bread recipe from her book Baking Made Easy. Success! - it was almost perfect, [note the 'almost']. I couldn't wait to see the end result and I took the loaf out of the oven too early. It needed 5 or 10 minutes more so it was slightly underbaked in the centre, but the rest of it was wonderful! It tasted really really good, really authentic, and got the thumbs up from my husband. We had to stop ourselves from devouring half the loaf immediately.

Don't you think it looks yummy? I am thrilled with it. And next time I will have more patience...