Lads, I did it. I made the soda bread.
This is an ideal bread recipe for newcomers, no fancy equipment needed and the bare bones of a recipe. I tricked Mrs J into making this last week; she who famously doesn’t cook but hovers hel…
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I already had the ingredients, apologies for the slightly spenny ‘organic’ flour and milk (organic is a word that is not in Jack’s lexicon, I feel).
View attachment 1706815My only complaints were that she way overestimated the amount of milk/lemon juice mixture by almost a third, which meant I threw some away. Not thrift approved behaviour. Also, I missed the part where it said you could add salt for more flavour because it was buried in the purple prose that preceded the recipe and frankly, when I’m making food it’s because I’m interested in food not your
bleeping life story.
Anyway, the dough came together ok. All going surprisingly well so far.
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Exactly 40 minutes later, it came out of the oven looking not too bad. I was planning my unbelievably controversial mea culpa, ready to hold my hands up and admit it wasn’t at all bad.
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BUT THEN…I caught a whiff of lingering honk! The loaf smelled like fish. I bravely ploughed on and cut into it (not easy, it’s pretty solid) and I tasted it. If it weren’t for the weird fishy taste, it would have had all the taste of thin air on sliced cardboard. Diabolical. Clever Fraus, was the honk the result of too much bicarb, on top of SR flour? Not that it really matters, even if the taste was ok it had the consistency of a brick. Thankfully, I gave some to the various animals I have, so it wasn’t entirely wasted but I would be furious if I had to bin it.
For anyone thinking of trying this, please save your time and money. I’ve taken one for the team so you don’t have to. Go well x