soda bread (aye?)

Oh me, Oh my i'm behind on these posts! Not to worry prompt perusers, there are breads-o plenty in the making. In my ever shrinking free time i've been working on croissants and pecan swirl loaves among other delectable baked goodies, soon to be shared with you all. In the meantime, It's Christmas time... and while I had planned to share with you all a cultural holiday bread, I will instead share with you this busy, busy season the glory of soda bread. In case you don't know, Soda bread has no yeast. It's made with artificial leavening (baking soda. Thus the name!) And because there is no yeast, there really is no proofing process which makes this bread a quick treat, great for little sandwiches or just for snacking. The recipe I altered for this version called for dates. If you'd like dried fruit in your soda bread, by all means toss some in. I planned to make cucumber sandwiches with mine, so I opted out.

you will need:

about 4 cups of flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup of buttermilk (if you don't have it, you can use regular milk)
1/4 cup melted butter
1 egg (beaten)
1/4 cup of walnuts (optional)
1/2 teaspoon salt

what to do:

Start by mixing together the butter, egg, buttermilk, walnuts, sugar, salt, and baking powder together in a large bowl. Add the flour gradually until the dough pulls together and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead for just a minute until the dough is smooth and the flour is totally incorporated. Pat into and 8 inch circle and transfer onto a greased baking pan. Dust the top lightly with flour and put it into a pre-heated oven at 200 degrees for about 30-40 minutes until the top is lightly brown and it sounds hollow when tapped. Transfer to a rack to cool and enjoy!

Barley and Wheat

Why buy sandwich bread when you can make it yourself? All it takes is a little time and care. This week found me with strange work hours and long mornings, so I figured I'd skip the grocery store bread (I know, aren't you appalled? I buy my bread at the grocery store sometimes. That's right. I'm a schmoe.) But I was (again) unsatisfied with the recipes I found for wheat bread (or rather, my honey crystallized so honey-wheat was sort of out of the question) So, my good dear people.. I present to you for the second week in a row, a totally made-up recipe. Regardless of the risk, this is one tasty bread, if I do say so myself and the first non-sweet one I've actually used a bread pan for.

the ingredients are pretty basic, minus maybe the barley flour. For this one, I used an active dry yeast rather than my tried and true starter.

ingredients:

1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 cup of warm water
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon molasses
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup barley flour (my actual measurement was about two handfuls so it might be closer to half a cup)

1/2-1 cup wheat flour
2-3 cups white flour

what to do: I started by combining the yeast with warm water. Give it a minute or two to activate and then add the salt, sugar, oil, molasses. Slowly integrate the barley flour and then the wheat flour. Add the white flour gradually while kneading until you reach a good consistency. Continue kneading until the dough is smooth and elastic (about 10 minutes). Place it back in your mixing bowl, cover with a damp towel and allow to rise in a warm place for about two hours. Once risen, punch it down and knead for a few minutes longer. Grease your bread pan and place your loaf in it, again covered with a damp towel to rise once more in a warm place (this time for about an hour or so until doubled in size). Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes. If it starts to get too brown on the top after 15, then cover with foil and continue baking.

Pumpkin Sourdough

I don't really know how to explain this one. To be honest, I had a weird craving for something that doesn't really exist. And to justify it, I came up with a lot of reasons as to why I should do it. Reasons like, all those cans of pumpkin puree are on sale since Thanksgiving has now passed..and theoretically the bread would be orange, and we all need a little color in our lives, right? Right. Despite my efforts, I could not find a recipe for this bread. So what did I do? I made it up. All in all, it was a pretty exciting experiment. The bread itself is a little spicy and the color is delightful.

ingredients:

2 cups of proofed starter
1/2 cup of pumpkin puree
3 teaspoons of sugar
2 tablespoons of molasses
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 cup of water (probably only needed 1/4)
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
a dash of nutmeg

about 1/2 cup of wheat flour
and 3 to 4 cups of white flour

here's what I did:

I started by proofing my sourdough starter overnight. When it was good and ready this morning, I measured out 2 cups and set it aside. Then I put the pumpkin puree, olive oil, sugar, molasses, salt and spices in a large mixing bowl and added my starter and water to that. Gradually, I mixed in the wheat flour, and then the white flour until the dough started to pull together.

The dough was then kneaded for about 10 minutes until elastic and smooth and set in a warm place to rise until doubled in size.

Once doubled (2 hours later) I punched it down and kneaded lightly, then formed it into a loaf and placed it on a greased baking sheet to rise again until doubled.

Once doubled, I let it bake in a preheated oven to 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until delightfully browned and hollow when tapped with a wooden spoon.


My last note is that this would make amazing sandwich bread. You know you wanna.