With the headlines today about David Cameron’s £139 bread maker and ‘artisan’ £30.20 Cotswold flour, the first thing to pop into my head was my own ‘Airy fairy easy peasy soda bread’ recipe – with no fancy bread maker required and around 32p a loaf…
Oh but you think you can’t make bread? That’s something that ‘other’ people do? Or that you need a fancy pants bread maker to do so? RUBBISH. You have a natural, free bread maker in your palms and your knuckles – and this easy recipe with no proving or rising time is a great place to start.
A lot of soda bread recipes use whole meal flour, salt, and yoghurt – but true to my usual style, I’ve pared it back to the basics – but basic doesn’t mean disappointing. Gorgeous warm with red fruit jam, or butter, or dunked into hearty soups and stews. It goes without saying that this is one of my favourite and most tried-and-tested recipes, and what better time to revive it than today?
Ingredients, Serves 4:
200g self raising flour
1 teaspoon (5g) bicarbonate of soda
200ml semi skimmed milk
2 teaspoons lemon juice
Method:
Pour the milk into a mug. Add 2 teaspoons of bottled lemon juice, stand to one side and allow it to sour.
Meanwhile, weigh the flour and add the bicarbonate of soda, and mix together in a mixing bowl.
Make a well in the centre of the flour mix, and pour most of the milk-and-lemon in. Mix well with a wooden spoon to form a sticky dough. Use your judgement, if it looks dry, add the remaining liquid. If it looks like a batter – that’s fine! Just pour it straight into the (lightly greased) loaf tin. The trick to amazingly light soda bread is not to fiddle with it too much.
Pop it into a loaf tin, and place in a 180C oven for 40 minutes. It should sound hollow on the bottom when tapped, and feel ridiculously light.
Break into chunks and serve warm with butter, or allow to cool completely and wrap in clingfilm to keep fresh.
Ingredients cost correct at time of publication and based on Sainsburys: 1.5kg flour 65p (200g 9p). 568ml milk 49p (200ml 17p). 250ml lemon juice 60p (10ml 2p). 200g Bicarbonate of soda £1.35 (5g teaspoon 4p)
Jack Monroe. Follow me on Twitter @MsJackMonroe