I love bread, two particular favorites are soda bread and a wonderful rye bread with dried fruit and nuts that I used to be able to get at the Bread Boutique in Duke of York square. Alas the latter is no longer available – and I’ve been looking for somewhere else doing it since – with no success. Being intolerant to wheat and yeast (owing to previous over-consumption), I am forever searching for wheat free alternatives and versions. So, the other night I thought I’d experiment to see if I could achieve my ‘leaven heaven’ - tinkering with a basic soda bread into a wheat free version with added dried fruit and nuts.
And blow me it was a bit of a triumph – delicious warm from the oven with just a bit of butter or creamy goats or ewes cheese – and a wonderful change from the usual breakfast. I tried it with some fresh Sussex Slipcoat with lavendar - food of the gods/goddesses.
Now, I've just received my first shipment of an inspired desert wine from Stellenbosch, SA, which would be perfect with this combo - blog and online purchasing to follow on that shortly.
Here’s the basic recipe – I added about the same weight as flour in dried fruit – but could have probably done with a little less, so I've suggested adding half the weight in flour. It’s such an easy one to make as well – a quick bish bosh on a Saturday morning and voila – impresses guests no end!
Prep: 20 mins
Cook: 40-45 mins
Makes 1 large loaf. Halve the quantities if you want a smaller loaf.
Ingredients
400 g of organic rye four
100g buckwheat flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp fine sea salt
200 g mix of dried prunes, apricots, figs and vine fruits
50 g of walnut pieces (or nut of choice)
400ml buttermilk or live yoghurt - you
A little extra milk, as required
To make it:
1. Sift the flour and bicarbonate of soda into a large mixing bowl and stir in the salt and dried fruit and nuts. Make a well in the centre and pour in the buttermilk, stirring as you go. If necessary, add a tablespoon or two of milk to bring the mixture together; it should form a soft dough, just this side of sticky.
2. Tip it out on to a lightly floured work surface (use a little rye and buckwheat) and knead lightly for about a minute, just long enough to pull it together into a loose ball but no longer – you need to get it into the oven while the bicarb is still doing its stuff. You're not looking for the kind of smooth, elastic dough you’d get with a yeast-based bread.
3. Put the round of dough on a lightly floured baking sheet and dust generously with flour. Mark a deep cross in it with a sharp, serrated knife, cutting about two-thirds of the way through the loaf. Put it in an oven preheated to 200°C/gas mark 6 and bake for 40-45 minutes, until the loaf sounds hollow when tapped underneath.
4. Cool on a wire rack if you like a crunchy crust, or wrap in a clean tea towel if you prefer a soft crust. Soda bread is best eaten while still warm, spread with salty butter and/or a dollop of your favourite jam. If you have some left over the next day, it makes great toast. I quarter and freeze mine to use up over time.
For seeded soda bread (instead of fruity), mix together 2 tablespoons each of sunflower, pumpkin, sesame, poppy and linseeds, plus 1 teaspoon of fennel seeds; set aside. Follow the main recipe adding all but 1 tablespoon of the seeds to the dry ingredients before proceeding as above. After cutting a cross in the top of the loaf, brush it with a little buttermilk or ordinary milk and sprinkle with the remaining seeds. Bake at 200°C/gas mark 6 for 40–45 minutes.
