Ingredients
dry ingredients
250g wholemeal flour, Marriage's Organic Strong Wholemeal Flour
100g white bread flour, Matthews Organic Strong White Flour
75g stoneground rye flour, Matthew's Dark Rye Wholemeal flour
75g Jumbo Rolled Oats
1 1/2 tsp (9g) fine sea salt
2 tsp (9g) bicarbonate of soda
extra flour for the tray
liquid ingredients
200g porter or dark ale
150g plain yoghurt, or buttermilk
about 100g milk, more if needed
50g light brown sugar
A trio of grains – wheat and rye flours, plus oats - give this simple soda bread lots of flavour. The porter, a kind of very dark beer (Guinness is a porter), adds both dark colour and a gentle hoppy malted flavour which I like, but you can replace it with the equivalent amount of water or milk with 10g Organic Meridian Fairtrade Blackstrap Molasses, or 5g of our Roasted Barley Malt Powder stirred in.
The secret to getting a light soft texture in any soda bread recipe is in the consistency you mix it to, and the oven temperature. Add enough liquid so that it stirs to a very thick paste that barely holds its shape, rather than a dough-like firmness. As the soda bread bakes, the bran in the flour and the dry oats will pull water from the crumb, so the mixture’s consistency needs to be quite soft when you stir it. Finally, baking it in a very hot oven will stop it drying out before it gets a good crust colour. Follow these tips and you’ll get a great soda bread that stays soft till the next day.
Method
1. Put the flours and rolled oats in a large mixing bowl. Combine the salt and bicarb in a cup, break up any lumps, and mix well. Add this to the flours and toss everything together well. Have a baking tray ready lined with non-stick paper (or well-floured), and heat the oven to 200C fan.
2. In another bowl mix together the porter with the buttermilk, milk and sugar. Pour this liquid in with the dry ingredients and fold everything together with a rubber spatula. Tilt the bowl slightly so that you’re cutting and folding over with the spatula as this will avoid mashing all the bicarb bubbles forming in the dough.
3. Scoop the dough into the centre of the tray in a mound. Lightly flour the top with extra flour then pat it into a round about 5cm high and 15-18cm in diameter.
4. Flour a cross mark on the dough then gently “cut” into it with your plastic scraper or a knife.
5. Bake the loaf for about 30 minutes until rising and just starting to brown on top. Remove from the oven, leave on the tray for 5 minutes to firm then transfer to a wire rack to cool.
