Irish · Bread
Soda Bread
- Easy
- 55 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with richness that coats and comforts.
Ingredients
- 450g plain flour (or half wholemeal for brown soda)
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 400ml buttermilk
- Nothing else. No yeast, no sugar, no kneading, no waiting.
Equipment
Sheet pan
The skills inside
The wobble & the skewer: testing a bake
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Whisk dry ingredients; make a well; pour in buttermilk.
- Mix with an open hand, claw-shaped, 30 seconds, a soft, shaggy dough.
- Shape a round on a floured tray; cut a deep cross fully across the top.
- Bake 220°C, 15 min, then 200°C, 25 min: hollow knock underneath means done. 15 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
The wobble & the skewer: testing a bake 135 recipes
- Tested at the true centre and the thickest point, not at the convenient edge: the edge is done long before the answer is.
- The skewer comes out as the recipe describes, clean and dry or carrying the stated moist crumb, and it does the same on a second test in a different spot.
- The wobble is read in motion: nudged, the centre moves as one set mass with a faint tremble, rather than a liquid ripple travelling across the surface.
- The other signs agree with the test: risen and just shrinking from the sides, the top set and dry to a light touch with no wet gloss on it.
- Pressed lightly at the middle it springs back and leaves no lasting dent.
Where it goes wrong It was judged on the clock and on how the edges looked, so a centre still liquid went to the rack and sank as it cooled, a dense wet seam under a perfectly browned top.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Grüner Veltliner
- Also Right
- Vermentino or dry Chenin
- From the Taps
- Saison
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling water with citrus & herbs
The vegetable whisperers: peppery, high-acid whites that flatter greens, roots, and grains without bullying them.
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