Soda Sandwiches

So. We wanted to get into making bread, but, as it is a Tuesday night, we wanted something easy to do. We know that regular bread is reasonably easy, but we wanted something SUPER easy. And we thought of soda bread.

We have also recently discovered Scanwiches, and so were even more in the mood for bread.

So after a trip to the grocery store, to buy all the sandwich-making necessities, we got down to business.

Or tried to. Get down to business, that is. Being without a scale, we found it a bit difficult to follow this recipe. So, we had to improvise. First attempt: find a conversion between grams and cups. This was somewhat complicated by the fact that we are without self-rising flour. What we had was whole wheat flour. We quickly found a method to self-raise-ify the flour we had, but unfortunately we were not so quick to calculate the required ratios... ("We have 1.4 cups flour, so we need 0.75 cups worth of baking powder. Wait, we don't have any baking powder. Uh, so two thirds of that...", etc.)

Formula: self-rising flour: ∀ cup of flour, add:
1.5 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp salt

Formula: 1.5 tsp baking powder
1.0 tsp cream of tartar
0.5 tsp baking soda

Note: bicarbonate of soda = baking soda

We mixed the flour together with the "proper" amounts of baking soda and tartar, and then added buttermilk into a lovely well in the middle of the dry ingredients. Once wrist-deep in sticky dough, Zo quickly realized that 2 * 170g does not in fact equal 320g (1.4 cups). Read: we had the wrong amount of flour and the dough was way too wet. Ew.

So basically we just added a bunch of flour and baking powder and hoped it would turn out.

Luckily it did!



Here is our (North American) version of the recipe without all those silly gram measurements:

Soda bread:
2.25 cups whole wheat (BROWN) flour
1 tsp cream of tarter
1.25 tsp baking soda
0.5 tsp salt
1.25 cups buttermilk

• Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit (unless you don't have an oven. In which case you are just out of luck).
• Mix dry ingredients in a bowl (thoroughly!). Make a well in the middle, and add the buttermilk.
• Incorporate (knead) quickly. But not too much. And not too little. If the dough is too wet, add more flour. If it is too dry, add some (regular) milk.
• Form the dough into a round (sort of a ball) and place it on a baking sheet. Or tray. Cut an X into the top of the dough entity and bake for thirty-five minutes, or until the bread sounds hollow when tapped.
• Remove the loaf from the oven and let it cool on a bread rack, or on a few bowls you've set up in the shape of a bread rack.
• Eat and enjoy. Hint: it's good with honey. Or as an integral part of a sandwich.

Appropriate bread baking/eating music: