Whole Wheat Irish Soda Bread

The flavor of this bread was OK, though the buttermilk came through very stongly. But the batter -- yikes! Way too wet and very difficult to handle and form. The texture wasn't bad, but if I hadn't had to handle it so much, I'm sure it would have been a bit lighter. As an experienced baker, I know that weather, measuring methods and individual flours can affect results, even when a recipe is followed exactly.

I chose this recipe as opposed to another I was considering, which called for a total of four cups of flour (2 cups whole wheat flour, 2 cups AP flour), as I wanted a recipe for a slightly smaller loaf. That other recipe called for 2-1/4 cups of buttermilk for the 4 cups of flour, yet many of the reviews for that recipe noted that the resulting batter was way to wet/loose. So I was a bit concerned when this recipe called for 2 cups of buttermilk for just 3 cups of flour. But I wanted to first try the recipe as written.

Sadly, the batter was a sodden mess, and required more handling than I would have liked (and even with well-floured hands, much of the dough stuck to my hands), just to get it to hold together. And due to the very wet batter, the bread needed an additional 3-5 minutes baking time. As a very young baker, I made Irish soda bread often, and it always came out perfectly, even though I was a much less experienced baker then than I am today. So I was annoyed with myself for not following my instincts with regard to the amount of buttermilk called for in this recipe. But not liking to give up easily, and always wanting to give a recipe a fair chance (and a fair review), I'll try this one again, next time reducing the buttermilk by 1/4 - 1/3 cup.