This is my quick way of making bread. It is based on the Irish soda bread, and doesn’t contain yeast, so no waiting for it to rise, nor kneading.
It’ll take you 5-10 minutes to prepare the mixture, and another 45 to cook it.
Heat your oven to 230°C, and make sure it reaches that temperature before you put the dough in the oven.
I tend not to measure out anything – it’s much more fun - so my weights are approximate. I did weigh how much flour I used the other day, and it was around 450g, but, woops, I forgot to weigh the milk. Basically you add enough milk to your dry ingredients until you have the right consistency. It depends on the size of your cake tin too.
You will need:
Around 450g flour – this can be any flour, or combination of flours you like. At the moment I’m using a mix of rye, millet, spelt and brown rice flours. Experiment, play, until you find something you like.
Good pinch of salt
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
A good handful of seeds and nuts – I use sunflower, pumpkin and poppy seeds.
Some milk – Irish soda bread uses buttermilk but I can’t buy that in France
Get a large bowl, put in your flour(s). Add the salt, bicarb and nuts and mix it all up. Then pour in your milk and mix until you have a nice sloppy mixture. Sometimes I don’t have enough milk so I just add water to top up and I’ve never noticed the difference. Once it’s well mixed, stop stirring. No need to over mix it.
Pour your nice sloppy, slightly sticky mix into a cake tin/mould and put it in the hot oven (230°C remember). After 15 minutes, turn the oven down to 180°C and leave it another half an hour.
It’s good to eat straight from the oven, but also keeps well for a few days, which is great news if you are cooking for one. Wrap it up or put it in a bread bin though.
Once you’ve sorted the basic recipe, have fun playing with it and try different variations. For example, you could use chestnut flour, chickpea flour, even lentil flour.
You could also make a sweet version by adding some dried fruit and spices like cinnamon or nutmeg.
Or a savoury one with bacon bits, olives, chopped sun-dried tomatoes, herbes de Provence
I'd love to know how you get on and do share your favourite combinations via the Comments section below.
Christina writes: Here's one I've just sent to J who asked what she could do with her aubergines and her flatmate's minced meat:
ReplyDeleteMoussaka is quite time consuming but delicious and filling. Basically you make a bolognaise sauce with the meat (fry onions, carrots, the meat, add tomato paste, a dash of wine if you have some, some beef stock and let simmer). Meanwhile wash and slice the aubergines thinly and you're meant to sprinkle them with salt and let them sweat out their bitter juices but I never bother. Then in a buttered oven-proof dish alternate a layer of aubergines and a layer of meat. Cover it all with a white sauce (melt butter, put in an equal amount of flour, cook for 1 min., then slowly add milk stirring constantly until its the right consistency for you - if it becomes lumpy use a whisk or a fork to destroy the lumps). Pop it into a pre-heated hot oven (about gas 7) and let it cook for 40 minutes or until the aubergines are very soft.
Thanks, Christina. Sounds delicious!
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