Irish Soda Bread

Method

1. mix5 min
   dry whisked, buttermilk in, a shaggy 30-second mix
   flour + soda + salt, then the buttermilk poured in and stirred to a rough shaggy mass — thirty seconds, not a minute: the soda meets the buttermilk's acid and starts NOW, and gluten built here is toughness later; this is a batter-bread wearing a loaf's shape, and it forgives nothing worked
2. prep3 min
   shaped to a round, cross cut a full inch deep
   turned onto a floured board, patted (never kneaded) into a fat round, set on the sheet, and a cross slashed deep across the whole top — the cut is structural: it opens the dense center to the heat, and the quartered top becomes the traditional tearing lines
3. bake45 min
   400°F, until deep brown and hollow-sounding
   until the crust is deep brown and a knuckle-tap on the base sounds hollow — the bread chapter's oldest doneness test, and on this loaf it actually works; the crust will be thick and rugged, which is the point of the whole tradition
4. rest15 min
   on a rack — briefly, then warm with butter
   soda bread's window is short and glorious: warm within the hour with salted butter it is the argument for its own existence, day-two it is toast, day-three it is for the birds — a bread made in an hour was never meant to last one day, and the tradition knows it