It’s soup season, and soup needs good bread – carrot and coriander soda bread!
Soda bread is, in effect, more of a cake. It is very versatile – quick and easy to make. The acidity of buttermilk interacts with the alkaline properties of baking soda to create bubbles of carbon dioxide – the bread’s leavening without the lengthy yeast process. So you can always have fresh bread with your soup.
The ingredients are also all to hand and inexpensive. Even if you can’t lay your hands on buttermilk – you can interchange it with yoghurt or kefir or easily make buttermilk by adding lemon to full cream milk. It’s ready in five minutes. Add one tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice to a measuring cup and top up with whole cream milk.
There is no real secret to soda bread, though. The more you make, the better the bread is, as you get the feel of the consistency of the dough. It is more of a scraggy cake mixture but should still pull together. It’s messy to make, so work with one hand to pull it together and then wash your hands and shape with wet hands.
For my Irish soda bread recipe, I tend to shape it into a traditional round loaf and then cut the cross and bake it immediately on the baking tray. However, the speciality soda breads work better in a loaf tin.
The recipe here is for carrot and coriander soda bread (with mature cheddar), and I have a second for bacon and spring onion. These are two combinations to get you started, but after that, follow the formula and create your recipes to complement your meal best.
More baking recipes here.
Carrot and Coriander Soda Bread
Equipment
- 1 450g (1lb) loaf tin lined with baking paper
Ingredients
- 140 g wholemeal flour (not bread flour)
- 140 g all-purpose flour (not bread flour)
- ½ tsp salt
- 1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 50 g grated carrot or supplement some of the grated carrots with walnuts
- 50 g grated mature cheddar or cheese of your choice
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 tbsp fresh coriander optional
- 240 ml buttermilk or whole milk/yoghurt with 1 tbsp lemon juice
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 230 °C.
- Sieve the bicarbonate of soda, flour, salt, and ground coriander in a large bowl.
- Add the grated carrot, cheese and fresh coriander (if using). Rub into the flour until it is thoroughly coated and mixed. This is important to make sure they are evenly distributed.
- Add the buttermilk and with one hand pull the mixture together. Keep adding buttermilk until you have a scraggy soft dough. Dont overmix it.
- Fill a lined loaf tin with the dough. With a wet knife, make a slash down the centre of the loaf, which helps the loaf cook evenly.
- Once the buttermilk is added, work quickly – the reaction with the bicarbonate of soda has started!
- Bake immediately for 15-20 minutes – then turn the oven to 200 °C. Bake for another 20 minutes – cover with foil if it starts to brown too quickly. The bread is ready when the base is tapped and sounds hollow.
- If you would like a cheesy topping – add a handful of grated cheese to the top of the bread 10 minutes before it has finished cooking.
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