Soda Bread from the Woodfired Oven
Here’s a bread for when you haven’t got time to make a yeasted and slowly fermented loaf – or any time really as it’s so delicious; quick and easy to make too so happy days! Any leftovers make great toast but there’s hardly any leftovers in our house….
The video of David making it is on our youtube channel here and don’t worry if you haven’t got a woodfired oven; you can make it in your regular oven at 210C.
Ingredients
200g plain white flour (all purpose if you’re in the US)
50g wholewheat flour
75g oat flakes (we used a mix of oat, wheat, barley and rye flakes but only as we had them – just oat flakes are fine)
5g salt
8g bicarbonate of soda
1tbsp molassses or honey
200ml buttermilk
50ml water
Oven State, equipment, door etc
Heat deflector useful to keep oven tidy and prevent side scorch from the embers
Dough mat especially if you’re working outside and helps you shape your dough perfectly!
Dough scrapers – for mixing the dough and especially if you don’t like getting messy hands!
Piece of Teflon sheet to bake the bread on and make it easier to get it in and out of the oven with your peel
Method
- Put all the dry ingredients into a large bowl and mix well together.
- Add the buttermilk, water and molasses and use your dough scraper to bring everything together to a wet dough, making sure you haven’t got any dry patches of flour or bicarb lurking at the bottom of the bowl.
- Flour your dough mat or work surface and shape the dough into a round about 18cm/7″ in diameter.
- Use your dough scraper to split the dough into quarters but not the whole way through – about 3/4 of the way down into the dough. Then mark each quarter with the end of the scraper – crucial this bit as it lets the pixies out!
- Put the round of dough on to the Teflon sheet and put it in the oven using your peel (if you’re baking your bread in a regular oven, put the dough on a preheated baking sheet in the oven so the bottom of the loaf starts baking straightaway)
- Shut the door and come back in 10 minutes to turn the bread round 180 degrees.
- Shut the door again and come back in another 10 minutes when your soda bread will be a good golden brown and baked all the way through with a satisfying thrumb when you pat the base.
- Cool the bread for a few minutes and serve with cheese and soup and butter.
Alternatives
- Make an all white bread if you want to.
- Add some seeds to the mix – a tablespoon or so if sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds give a great crunch.
- Use milk acidulated with lemon juice if you can’t get buttermilk – same quantities and the juice of half a lemon.
- If you haven’t got a refractory oven like our Bushman Santorini, just keep feeding your bed of embers with small sticks of dried wood to keep the heat up as the bread bakes.
- Toast any leftovers for breakfast – or make 2 loaves so you know you’ll have some leftovers!
Remember if you want to explore more breadmaking, we have lots of breadmaking classes; also a sourdough app and an Italian bread app so you can have a virtual David with you in your own kitchen as you bake wherever you are in the world and whatever the state of lockdown…. You can also call David for your own breadmaking consultation so you can sort out any doughy issues you might have.
Happy cooking
David and Hollyx