Styles of Bread

In Ireland, breads tend to be divided between soda bread and yeast-raised, often called pan. A soda is a round quick bread, brown or white, and raised with buttermilk and baking soda, whereas a pan is, as you might expect, a rectangularly sliced, yeast-raised loaf that was shaped and baked in a loaf pan. It’s very similar to any American package loaf bread, although pans in Ireland don’t have so much added sugar. Granary bread is a multigrain pan. Then there’s batch, yeastraised bread that’s denser and chewier than pan. It’s not baked in a loaf pan, but gets its name because the oblong loaves are baked pressed together, in a batch, so they rise high and then they’re pulled apart, leaving the sides pale, while the top crust is a dark brown. It’s the best bread for toasting.