Soda bread is a common bread recipe nowadays, since it fits really well the shortage of yeast. However, I have to say from the beginning that the ingredient that makes the bread taste like bread is yeast.
Soda bread is a good emergency replacement of bread and, besides, really fast and easy to make. However is not the mist faithful replica of bread. I find it that it goes really well with sweet things, maybe because my brain associates the baking soda with backing cookies.
Soda bread
Baking time: 20 min
Difficulty: easy
Ingredients
- 550 g of all purpose flour + few extra tbsp for shaping the bread
- 500 g of milk
- 1-2 tbsp of lemon juice or vinegar
- 1/2 tsp of bicarbonate soda
- 1/2 tsp of salt
Directions
- In order to make the butter milk: all you need is to put the vinegar or lemon juice in the cold milk and let it rest for 15 min. It will thicken a bit and the acidity will allow to the bicarbonate soda to activate while baking.
- The trick for this recipe is to prepare it very fast, so that the bicarbonate soda activate during baking, not before.
- Mix the flour with the salt and the soda and poor in the milk.
- Mix until they are combined.
- Place on the table with some extra flour and knead maximum ten times or until you can shape it in a bread shape.
- Place it on a baking sheet and cut a cross in the middle.
- Bake it at 200 C for 20 min.
- Serve it hot or in the next 1-2 days. It freezes really well, so you can freeze it and then simply wrap it in a damp paper towel and microwave it for 30 seconds at 900 watts.
unfrozen version