Recipes for scrumptious and reasonably healthy food

[User211]

its my favorite breakfast ..a thick,warm slice of home made soda bread dripping with butter and strawberry jam....yummy! and better for you than those fry ups i used to love.....ha!

Do you make it? It is dead easy...

[struth]

Do you make it? It is dead easy...

yes its very easy and quick. you have to be quick actually and the less you work it the better.

250 grams sifted normal plain flour(not bread flour), tsp salt.tsp bicarb soda. tsp baking powder. 2 tsp soft brown sugar. 6 fluid ounce of cultured buttermilk with 2 f ounce of milk added to loosen it.

have the oven already on at gas 8. ....when you add the buttermilk the reaction starts so you have to get it together fast. i just bring it together in a big bowl with a spoon then a sprinkle of flour on hands and table pop it out shape it into a round or oval. put on a greased sheet or parchment paper on a sheet..a big deep slash down middle with a big knife and in oven for 15 mins.then turn down to gas 5 for another 15 min. take out put on wire rack with a tea towel covering it let it cool..best eaten warm. you can as i do later cut a slice and give it 10 secs in microwave..

5 mins work and half hour in oven for great bread cant be bad

[User211]

I made the mistake of buying a top of the line Panasonic bread maker a while back. You get totally fed up with the odd, boring, just plain weird looking loaves it produces.

So I started looking into working out how to do it properly. Got heavily into pot baked sourdoughs but these days I tend to use fresh bakers yeast bought from ebay (it freezes and keeps for a year or so).

All you need to make great bread is a plastic mixing bowl from Asda for a couple of quid. You need not even knead it. Just wait for 12 hours and let the yeast do all the work. Pot baking in a cast iron pot works brilliantly - 20-30 minutes with the lid on and 20-30 minutes with it off gives superb results.

Check this weird hippy video out. It WILL produce ace sourdough.

[struth]

i used make all kinds of bread myself and sourdough was a knack i eventually mastered. hade my own culture for years.
i am allergic to yeast a bit now so stick to non yeast bread now and tbh soda bread is great. never did the pot way although been told it was an excellent way to cook it.
hand made bread always beats a bread maker but convienience wise it was great to just fire the stuff in the pan and switch on...got a panasonic obe but mot used it for a while now.
good luck with the soda...it really is easy as pie. you just want it to just be able to absorb the flour in no more. dont work it as you dont want any gluten

[Marco]

Another soda bread fan here - in fact of any decent 'artisan'-style bread. As long as it's not mass-produced supermarket shite, I'll eat it!

I like a bit of soda bread Grant, but i wouldn't say its my 'fave'. Takes ages to toast.

Indeed, but I wouldn't dream of toasting quality bread - that's what your cheap white or brown supermarket cack is for... Good bread should be eaten 'as is' with some equally good butter and/or conserve, spread on top.

Gordon, I love French butter (especially the organic farm types) - so creamy and luscious, it's untrue! Indeed, as is their 'Bon Maman' jam, which we bring back in the car, by the case, for breakfast back home (as the brand is much cheaper to buy in France than in the UK). Yum, yum....

Marco.

[User211]

i used make all kinds of bread myself and sourdough was a knack i eventually mastered. hade my own culture for years.
i am allergic to yeast a bit now so stick to non yeast bread now and tbh soda bread is great. never did the pot way although been told it was an excellent way to cook it.
hand made bread always beats a bread maker but convienience wise it was great to just fire the stuff in the pan and switch on...got a panasonic obe but mot used it for a while now.
good luck with the soda...it really is easy as pie. you just want it to just be able to absorb the flour in no more. dont work it as you dont want any gluten

I went on a bread making course and got a San Francisco sourdough culture. that was over 100 years old. That stuff was rank, and analysis showed it to contain human spit enzymes. It was sour beyond belief.

Sourdough cultures are weird and you don't really know what bacteria has thrived in them. A good culture can make amazing bread, though, packed full of flavour. Far more so than lab cultured yeast.

The real mind **ck is when you get good you realise the bread you are making beats even the best delis. Well, I think so anyway.

I do toast my bread as I can never eat it all in time so freeze it. It takes ages to toast but it is amazing it you can tolerate the wait.

One thing - I have a recipe book for soda that says you can use all milk rather than buttermilk. Have you tried that Grant and does it work?

[struth]

Probably not actually but certainly very yummy indeed. We are experimenting with various breads at the mo as we are both gluten intolerant. The only failure has been the rye which is a shame as the few edible bits were delicious. Carry on experimenting

I wonder why all the wheat free breads take so long to toast too!! Can't try the soda bread as it uses ordinary flour but there you go.

Karina's Gluten-Free Irish Soda Bread Recipe
Original recipe posted March 2009.

This soda bread sports a mildly sweet and complex flavor. The potato starch gives it tenderness, moisture and lift. If you don't like the taste of caraway, try a touch of finely grated orange peel. Make sure your source of millet flour is truly gluten-free. See here.

Ingredients:

1 cup gluten-free millet flour or certified GF oat flour
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup potato starch (not potato flour)
2 tablespoons raw sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 teaspoons xanthan gum
5 tablespoons Earth Balance Stick, or Spectrum Naturals Organic Shortening
3/4 cup plain non-dairy milk with 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
2 free range organic eggs or Ener-G Foods Egg Replacer
1 tablespoon honey or raw agave nectar
1 to 3 teaspoons caraway seeds, to taste (or use grated orange peel zest)
1 cup currants or raisins

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375ºF. Lightly grease an 8-9 inch round cake pan and dust it with gluten-free flour.

Whisk the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Cut in the shortening with a whisk, fork or pastry cutter.

Whisk the wet ingredients together in a separate bowl.

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the non-dairy milk, beaten eggs and honey, gently mixing as you go. I use a soft silicone or rubber spatula to do this. If you need a little more non-dairy milk to moisten the dough, add a tablespoon at a time and stir in.

When the dough is evenly moist- like sticky biscuit batter, add the caraway and raisins. Stir only briefly to mix them in.

Scrape and spoon out the dough into the prepared cake pan; and use wet hands to flatten and smooth the dough into a round loaf.

Using a sharp knife, slice a criss-cross into the dough and wiggle it a bit from side to side to make a wider dent. [According to Irish folklore, the criss-cross discourages the mischievous fairies from messing with your humble loaf of bread. In case you were wondering.]

Place the pan into the center of a preheated oven. Bake for about 30 minutes, until the loaf is golden and crusty and sounds hollow when thumped. Insert a wooden toothpick into the center to test for doneness.

Cool on a wire rack for five minutes; and turn the loaf out of the pan to cool to room temperature on the rack.

This sweet and tender bread is fabulous warm from the oven, even if it tends to crumble a bit. It gets a bit sturdier as it cools.

Cook time: 30 min

[struth]

I went on a bread making course and got a San Francisco sourdough culture. that was over 100 years old. That stuff was rank, and analysis showed it to contain human spit enzymes. It was sour beyond belief.

Sourdough cultures are weird and you don't really know what bacteria has thrived in them. A good culture can make amazing bread, though, packed full of flavour. Far more so than lab cultured yeast.

The real mind **ck is when you get good you realise the bread you are making beats even the best delis. Well, I think so anyway.

I do toast my bread as I can never eat it all in time so freeze it. It takes ages to toast but it is amazing it you can tolerate the wait.

One thing - I have a recipe book for soda that says you can use all milk rather than buttermilk. Have you tried that Grant and does it work?

as long as you add an acid to react with the soda.. cream of tartar and lemon juice work. there is tartar in baking power so you dont need buttermilk. tastes better though and its cheap and has a good shelf life.. if not using it add a bit more baking powder . a little lemon juice in milk and leave for 5 /10 mins in fridge before adding to the powder. baking powder is tartar and soda it reacts when it gets wet.

[jollyfix]

I wouldn't dream of toasting quality bread

Marco.

Nothing wrong with toasting a quality artisan bread, i do that often, today topped with marinated tomatoes ( fresh thyme, wee bit garlic, salt, and very good quality extra virgin oil, drizz of honey).

[User211]

as long as you add an acid to react with the soda.. cream of tartar and lemon juice work. there is tartar in baking power so you dont need buttermilk. tastes better though and its cheap and has a good shelf life.. if not using it add a bit more baking powder . a little lemon juice in milk and leave for 5 /10 mins in fridge before adding to the powder. baking powder is tartar and soda it reacts when it gets wet.

I will get some buttermilk and give it a go. I can't believe I haven't already done it TBH and had said recipe out only yesterday.