Why Bake your own Irish Soda Bread?

I love fresh bread, I love fresh soda bread. When I became sensitive to foods containing dairy products I had to cross soda bread off the list of things I could buy or enjoy as a standard to-go-with many foods served in restaurants etc.. “I just have the soup, thank you” was my standard answer. Nearly all the soda bread available here is still off the menu for me because soda bread is made with butter milk in Ireland. And though food sensitivity has become a big thing here and many, many places try to cater for people with gluten or dairy sensitivities the soda bread is still pretty much a no-go or more like a no-can-do. It’s like a holy cow that can’t be touched or more like stubborn mule who won’t budge. It seems to be one of the things that simply can’t be changed. And it surprises me because many restaurants make their own highly creative alterations adding dark stout to the dough and more. They just haven’t figured out how to make it without dairy products.

And it really surprises me that nobody does at least a dairy free option of this yummy bread because it is such an easy bread to make and to make it dairy free really doesn’t require many tricks.

So you might now know ‘why bake your own dairy free Irish Soda Bread’ is a valid question for someone living in Ireland. It’s super simple to make. It’s quick and you can tailor it to your needs, in my case dairy free) with this simple recipe. I’m currently working on a gluten free version of this bread. Stay tuned because I will publish the recipe here on LotteWild.com soon.

Ingredients for one Loaf of Dairy free Irish Soda Bread:

• 1 cups/500 g wholemeal wheat flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup/125 g natural soya yoghurt
• 3/4 cup/175 ml water

Preparation Time: 10 minutes, baking time 25-30 minutes

1.  Preheat the oven to 390˚F/200˚C.
2. Mix all the dry ingredients in  mixing bowl.
3. Put the yoghurt into a measuring jug and add the water to make up 1 1/4 cups/300 ml. It doesn’t matter if your yoghurt measurement is slightly less or more as long as you top it to 11/4 cups/300ml.
4. Mix all the ingredients together.
5. Moisten a silicone baking tin or alternatively lightly grease a bread baking tin with a little bit of olive oil and coat the inside of the tin with flour or rolled oats.
6. Fill the tin with the dough and smoothen the top with a wet spatular then score the length of the dough with a sharp knife and dust the top of the dough with a bit of flour.
7. Bake the loaf for 25 min then cover it with a bit of tinfoil and bake for another 5 minutes.
8. Remove the loaf from the tin, wrap it in a clean kitchen towel and let it cool on  rack.

This bread tastes best fresh from the oven when its still a little bit warm. For a slightly lighter texture you can change the ingredients from 500g wholemeal to 300g wholemeal and 200g white flour. As a sweet variety the bead is also nice if you add 3 tbs of sugar and 80g raisins to the dough.