{Guest Post} Deliciously Simple Soda Bread

Today I am very proud to let my wonderful husband take over this little space and give you a taste of his own creation. I am sure that after seeing this you will want him to come back with more. Which I’m sure he will with very little coaxing!

Hello Blog lovers!

I have been invited by my beautiful wife to tell you about the joys of making bread, in particular Soda Bread.

I have experimented with bread making for a few years now from an Onion loaf to Bloomers and Sesame seed and Honey. I love the versatility and joy that a fresh loaf of bread can bring and I think my wife does too, especially when I bring it to her in bed for breakfast with some smoked salmon!

Anyway I digress. Today is about Soda bread and this was my first attempt at making it. I hope you’ll agree that it came out rather well!

If you find yourself wanting to make a loaf but either don’t have the time to wait for it to rise, can’t be bothered to knead it or want a change from white, white, white then this is the loaf for you.

It’s a recipe from Paul Hollywood’s book Bread. A great starting point for any wannabe baker.

Your ingredients are:

250g plain white flour

250g plain wholemeal flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp salt

420ml buttermilk

What to do:

Put all of your dry ingredients into a bowl (plain white flour, plain wholemeal flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt). Make a scary claw with your hand and with your fingers facing down gently run your fingers through them until they are evenly mixed. Create a well in the middle of the bowl and pour the buttermilk in. Now, either with a spoon or your hand if you don’t mind getting messy, mix the ingredients together until they make a sticky dough.

Put some flour onto a surface and pour the mixture on to it. Gently roll the dough on the surface and fold it over, keep doing this for about a minute or so. This brings all of the ingredients together. There is no need to knead here just roll and fold.

Make a ball with the dough then flatten it with your hand. Get your baking tray, nicely lined with baking parchment and place the dough on it. Slice a nice deep cross in the dough and open the sections out slightly.

If you’re in a rush you can put it straight into a preheated oven at 200C. If not then let it rest for 30 minutes allowing the bicarbonate of soda to do its thang.

Once rested bake it for 30 minutes with a slight dusting of plain white flour to add some lovely colour to the loaf.

If cooked it will sound hollow when tapped underneath. Then leave to cool on a wire rack.

And that’s it! I don’t think you’ll find an easier loaf and it’s ruddy tasty too.

I made a breakfast with crispy bits of streaky bacon, black pudding, a poached egg and some home-grown rainbow chard. As my wife would say… Delish!

Bread, bread, lovely bread put it in your head,

down to the tum and out the bum,

eat yourself some bread!

Thank you very much for having me and I hope you enjoy this loaf!

Christoph