My Goddaughter, Chloe, has a yeast intolerance so can’t eat standard bread. Luckily there are lots of different soda and wheaten breads that use bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) and buttermilk/yogurt to make wonderful loaves. The Irish in particular are famous for these sorts of breads but they are made elsewhere
I like using buttermilk, particularly now I have found it available in 1 litre cartons courtesy of Ocado, as it gives a wonderful crumb I love the fact I can get this loaf in the oven in ten minutes and I love the nutty taste of this bread. Now admittedly wheaten/soda bread does not keep as well as other bread and is at its best eaten on the same day its baked or toasted the next but this particular recipe with the edition of the melted butter keeps another day quite satisfactorily
I often add a tablespoon of black treacle to the butter when melting if I am going to serve this with smoked fish such as salmon as I love the foil of the smokey sweetness of the bread against the saltiness of the fish but for every day I don’t add it
As far as tips are concerned, I always bake my bread with the loaf tin place on a preheated baking sheet in oven as I find his gives a better bake I also put an old roasting tin on the floor of the oven so when I put in the loaf I can throw a cup of cold water into it and thus create steam which helps the initial rise of the loaf
It always pleases me that the bicarbonate of soda reacts with the sunflower seeds during cooking so the go a bright emerald green which is rather pretty to look at and is perfectly healthy to eat If you look closely at the photos of the slices of bread being toaste you should be able to see it
Lastly, I will I promise Chloe, add lots more recipes of these breads as I know you are fond of some of the savoury ones such as the feta and tomato and the green olive bread but this one is the best staple Brilliant with soup, great with cheese and wonderful as toast with peanut butter!
Ingredients
- 350g malted brown strong flour
- 110g strong white flour
- 50g pinhead oats
- 50g sunflower seeds (or linseed/pumpkin/sesame etc)
- 1tsp salt
- 1tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1 tsp soft brown sugar
- 50g melted butter
- 450g buttermilk
Method
- Heat oven to 230c with a baking sheet placed on middle sheet and a roasting tin on base of oven
- Butter and line a large 2lb/900g loaf tin with baking parchment
- Mix together all the dry ingredients
- Melt butter (add 1 tbsp of black treacle if desired)
- Add butter and buttermilk to dry ingredients and mix till thoroughly combined.
- Shape into oblong and quickly put into loaf tin pressinground edges to make loaf shape. Dust with a little extra white flour if dough is too sticky
- Place loaf tin on middle shelf in oven with a cup of water in roasting tin (see notes above)
- After 15 mins reduce temperature to 150c and bake for another hour
- Turn out bread and wrap in clean tea towel on a wire rack (this help crust to be softer)