Irish Soda Bread

So this is it.  I love soda bread and would happily eat a soda cake to myself with just butter.  Add a bit of homemade jam and my tastebuds are in ecstasy.

 I found it hard to get the recipe right but turns out I had just been over-complicating it.  The basic recipe comes from one of my co-workers Rob's Dad who makes bread every evening for 3 generations of the family.  

This will freeze well so you can make this in advance and defrost overnight. I double the recipe but make three loaves at a time because I add my own seed mix to it (see variations).

250g Stoneground Wholewheat Flour
250g Plain Flour
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Baking Soda
500ml Buttermilk

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 190C (reduce to 175C when the bread goes in)
2. Stir together the dry ingredients and make a well in the middle pour in the buttermilk.  Mix until combined well but dont overmix.
3. Grease and Flour a loaf tin and empty the dough into it.  Cut a slit with a sharp knife down the length of it to let out the steam.
4. Bake for approx 1 hour.  If you're not sure test the bread to see if its done.
5. Take out the bread and wrap in a clean tea towel (this will prevent the crust from getting too hard)

Variations

I like nutty tasting bread so I mix together linseed pumpkin seed sunflower seed sesame seed and a fistful of oatmeal which makes it very rich in fibre