I can not for the life of me find the hardcore traditionalist recipe I use, though it came from some UK or Irish newspaper where a prominent Irish chef was explaining the history of the stuff and promoting the return of the white loaf. And a lot of the better old school recipes I run into these days are for white. Either because Americans think of soda bread as white. Or because Irish food promoters want to bring it back and counter the American style psuedo-cake.
So I’ll just throw out Stella parks recipe:
Most of the good ones look almost exactly like this, but serious eats gives better technical instruction.
For brown you just swap half or all the flour for whole meal. Nearly any good soda bread recipe can be converted that way. You can usually add a tablespoon of caraway seeds or up to 2 tablespoons of rolled oats without adjustment. The oats taste nice and leave the bread a little more crumbly
If I want sweet cakey bread we make president Kennedy bread. It’s so extracted from the source as to be unrecognizable as soda bread. But because of that it misses the dense and dry problem that plagues most Americanized loaves.
http://www.cooks.com/recipe/r60b45j1/president-kennedys-irish-bread.html
We typically use dates over raisins and skip the nuts.
I’ll edit later with the family’s favorite sorta bastardized recipe later. It’s from some small town Hibernian society community cook book from the 60s. So it’s not linkable.
ETA:
Recipe. Its got both sugar and butter. Neither of which are really proper. But both help to compensate for the American flour. The butter limits gluten production, and the sugar traps water helping keep the bread from getting too dry. I usually use brown sugar when I make this version, cause if I’m adding sugar I’d like it to bring some flavor to the table. The milk brushed on top helps keep the top crust from getting leathery. A problem that comes with too much gluten. I usually just use whatever residual buttermilk is clinging to the measuring cup. Though I’ve gotten some nice results with adding some melted butter. I usually make this with the Irish whole meal and American AP. Works fine. Also works fine with American whole wheat, you just get a smoother loaf that’s a little less “wheaty” in flavor. which is why some recipes use wheat germ. You can toss in a table spoon, in place of or along with the oats. But you might need more moisture. Dough needs to be really shaggy and wet. Like can’t touch it without well floured hands wet (but not a batter).
I’ve found that cooking in preheated cast iron or on a baking stone the bottom will burn. Probably because of the sugar. So I usually go for 425f, check it at 30 minutes, then every 10 minutes after that until its done.
This is the version I grew up eating. Though my grandmother was also a big fan of various Irish mixes, basically the Irish equivalent of self rising flour. Flour, soda, and salt premixed to the appropriate ratio. Dump in some buttermilk, mix briefly and bake. Used to be the only way we could get the right flour.
