I didn’t expect to be writing a post about soda bread so I didn’t take a picture of the loaf. Only today, when I found that it was delicious when a day old I decided to post, by which time this was all that remained.
It is well-known that ‘Irish’ soda bread is good only on the day it is made, or so I have always understood (and that has been my experience). Consequently, I only made it when we had an ‘out of bread’ emergency, as yesterday, with no time to make a more conventional loaf (shop bought bread in the UK is not good, even in my opinion expensive ‘artisan’ loaves. I’ve been spoiled by German breads).
Because there are only two of us I always struggled to make a small enough quantity to eat on the same day (I hate discarding food but the birds were happy).
As Wednesday is one of our ‘veggie days’ we decided yesterday to eat an avocado each followed by ‘iahnie’ (pronounced, roughly, yak-nee-ay), a puree of butter beans for us but of the much larger ‘boabe’ (bwar-bay) beans in Romania, with bread. It’s usually flavoured with garlic, maybe other things like herbs.
No bread so I made a soda bread (but not the ‘real’ one as it calls for buttermilk, which I did not have). We ate it straight out the oven – the iahnie is cold. As usual we had some over so it was put in a bag, hot, still steaming when broken, with the idea of giving the birds a feast today. But, guess what, it was soft and absolutely delicious today when we ate it for our lunches. Poor birds!
Here’s the recipe I made:
250g wholemeal bread flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
200 ml full-fat milk
Juice of a lemon
1 tsp honey
Mix the dry ingredients well in a bowl. Pour the lemon juice into the milk (it’s magic!). Stir in the honey till dissolved. Make a well in the flour etc, pour in the ‘artificial buttermilk’ and mix with a spatula till the ‘dough’ is ‘together’. Shape into a round loaf, put on a floured baking tray (I use coarse semolina), cut a deep cross in the top and put in the oven preheated to 180degC (that’s my fan oven; I guess 200degC for ‘conventional’ oven). Bake for 30 minutes or till it sounds hollow when rapped on the bottom.
Note. This made a very ‘sloppy’ dough, difficult to handle and shape, so next time I’d add a bit more flour.
Grumpytyke 
November 15, 2018 at 11:16 pm
I’ll try this. Reckon the heat and enveloping ‘bag’ to keep alive made the difference with next day success. Reminded of my Nan’s Northen Ireland recipe as a child. So? Will try yours and therefore……..Awaiting comparison. Iahnie and tahini sound similar. All recipe content obviously….but pronunciation? ….it’s a so close so….give it a go. Ergo….synergy. Yours a definite complete. Tahini a starter for Humus dip. But whatever the outcome. Experimentation. Probably THE perfect addition to your bread. Olives? Success with most of the breads. Will include. Vegetarian is a must for me. Not so Vegan. So room for much experiment. May add Feta. Love synergy, so thanks for the starting soda point. All the best. Gray.
November 16, 2018 at 6:34 am
Good to hear from you Gray. I’m sure you’re right, the bag is an essential part of the recipe, but I’ve bagged soda bread before and it was still no good the next day. What delighted me about this was I can in future make a larger bread then have it another day but also that it tasted particularly delicious. It just needed ‘cooking’ over a wood fire.