Soda Bread: Fail

I decided to embrace my children’s Irish heritage last night and make my first attempt at soda bread.  After a few minutes’ searching on Google, I found a recipe that fit my most important requirement – no buttermilk.  I don’t keep it in the house, and I can’t stand the waste of driving the the store for one item.

So here it was!  Shared on an expat board…surely, if this is recommended by a real Irishwoman, it should be wonderful.  Right?

It certainly looks beautiful…

…and it feels nice, with a good, hollow thumping sound when I tap it.  (See how creative I got, monogramming it in place of the traditional cross-hatching?)

Yeah, but.

It tastes like baking soda.

Now, I know it’s called soda bread, but you’re not supposed to TASTE the soda.  Are you?  I don’t recall ever tasting baking soda in soda bread before.

Blech.

Today, I found it was fine once toasted and slathered with peanut butter, jam, and fresh strawberries.  (Thanks for the suggestion, Mom!)  I can’t decide if I’m going to be stubborn enough to play around with this recipe and try to “fix” it, or if I’ll just break down and attempt to think enough ahead to have buttermilk on hand for the next time I want to make it.