Hi everyone, our family has been making lockdown Irish soda bread every day! It’s really easy and I have been making it with gluten free flour too as sometimes it’s hard to get your hands on standard flour. Yeast has been hard to come by as well, so this bread recipe has been a handy one to have. Soda bread is best eaten on the day it is made, or toasted the next day. It is an excellent bread recipe for kids to make as it is so simple. 

Ingredients:

• 1½ cups each wholemeal flour and high-grade white flour (or the same in gluten-free flour)
• 1 tsp each salt and baking soda, sifted
• 2 cups of buttermilk

Note: If you don’t have buttermilk it’s easy to make your own. Just add a tablespoon of any white vinegar or lemon juice for every cup of milk and leave aside for ten minutes to curdle.

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C fanbake and line an oven tray with baking paper.
2. Mix flour, salt and baking soda in a large bowl. Make a well in the centre and add buttermilk. Mix to form a sticky, soft dough.
3. Using well-floured hands, shape the dough into a rough ball about 18cm in diameter on the prepared oven tray. Use a sharp knife dipped in hot water or oiled to cut a large cross in the top of the loaf.

Bake until the loaf is golden and sounds hollow when tapped (40-45 minutes). If not eating at once, wrap in a clean tea towel and use within a day or serve toasted. 

Stay safe,
Heather