By Katherine Keller
We humans like bread. Today, in one form or another, it is consumed in cultures all over the world. Wheat, millet, buckwheat, sorghum, corn, oat, rye, barley, and rice flour are used to make thousands of variations. For millions, bread is an indispensable component of daily nutrition, providing essential protein, carbohydrates, and minerals.
It is a quintessential comfort food. The scent of baking bread elicits sighs and yearning.
Could that be why the breadmaking-boom arose in the pandemic? Did we yearn for the simple solace of fresh, warm bread amidst the uncertainty and upheaval? Yes, yes, yes. But we also found ourselves grappling with yawning chasms of boredom. Bread making offered a reprieve. The time and attention required to make bread provided an edifying diversion, dispelling the inescapable sameness of confinement.
In the early phase of the pandemic the impetus to make bread was so great that all-purpose flour was as scarce as hand sanitizer and toilet paper. As the pandemic appears to show promise of waning, I wonder if the desire to bake one’s own bread will persist when time is no longer in surplus and a virus no longer our jailer.
Life after the pandemic will force a return to freneticism and competing demands. The greatest barrier to sustaining the breadmaking trend will be time. Ordinary yeasted bread takes about six hours to make, and the wild-yeasted versions may require as many as 36 or more.
For you who wish to continue making handcrafted bread, I recommend Irish soda bread.
From start (measuring a mere four ingredients) to finish (removing it from the oven), it takes no more than 60 minutes to produce a very fine loaf.
I know of no easier nor faster bread than Irish soda bread.
There’s another advantage and it’s why I refer to it as a gateway bread. It is simple, quick, and straightforward and for newcomers, a perfect place to begin one’s breadmaking quest.
As the redoubtable British culinary writer Elizabeth David observed in English Bread and Yeast Cookery, “Everybody who cooks, in however limited a way, should know how to make a loaf of soda bread.”
Four ingredients
Traditional Irish soda bread is not a yeast bread, therefore not a “slow bread.” Neither is it an enriched bread, not in its pure, original form. It is not made with oil, butter, or eggs, although you will find scores of recipes named ‘Irish soda bread’ that are made with those ingredients—just as there are recipes for it made with raisins, oatmeal, molasses, seeds, cheese, olives, and herbs.
Traditional soda bread requires only four ingredients: all-purpose flour or whole wheat flour, or a combination of both, buttermilk, salt, and baking soda.
Don’t be deterred by “buttermilk.” Even though it is readily found at most grocery stores, you can skip it and easily make a substitute with kitchen staples.
Baking soda contains carbon dioxide. It is a base (alkaline) and needs to combine with an acid in order for the carbon dioxide to be released. Buttermilk is acidic. Together the baking soda and buttermilk combine and create carbon dioxide bubbles that leaven the bread and make it rise.
A lot of bakers skip a trip to the store to pick up buttermilk and instead make a perfectly workable substitute. They combine lemon juice or vinegar and allow it to stand for five minutes. The milk becomes acidified and it also slightly thickens. The acidity of this simple substitute is equal to that of buttermilk and serves the same purpose in the recipe.
Vegans rejoice! This substitution can be made with soy or nut milk, which means your Irish soda bread will be 100 percent plant-based.
Leaveners
There are three basic types of bread. Unleavened, leavened with yeast, and leavened with baking soda or baking powder.
Unleavened bread, generally known as a flatbread, is made without yeast or other leavening agent that would make the dough rise when exposed to heat. Tortillas, pita, lefse, chapati, and matzo are flatbreads.
Leavened bread is made from dough that rises when it is baked. The gluten strands in the flour stretch and lift in response to bursting carbon dioxide bubbles that are produced when the dough is exposed to heat. The gluten creates bread’s structure. The carbon dioxide is produced by yeast, baking soda, or baking powder.
You will sometimes see breads made with baking soda or baking powder referred to as quick breads. Zucchini bread is a quick bread.
Most bread sold in the United States is leavened with commercial yeast. The yeast is sold in granules packaged in foil or glass jars.
Granular yeast was preceded by “cake yeast.” It can still be found in some grocery stores today, although one must usually ask where to find it. It is sold in semi-moist blocks, wrapped in foil, and needs to be refrigerated. It is highly perishable. It is far less concentrated than dry yeast. Eighteen grams of cake yeast have the same leavening power as seven grams of dry yeast.
The third form of leavening is wild or natural yeast. It’s what makes sourdough bread rise. It has enjoyed celebrity status during the COVID-19 pandemic when thousands of the homebound learned to bake sourdough. The ubiquitous wild yeast is found everywhere. It lives on fruit, vegetables, and grain kernels. It flits about in the air. The yeast is ‘captured’ in a mixture of water and flour known as a sourdough “starter.” Wild yeast is the slowest acting, but in my opinion, produces the best bread.
Ancient Bakers
Scholars tell us that humans have been making bread for at least 30,000 years.
Researchers at the Italian Institute of Prehistory and Early History found starch grains on 30,000 year old grinding stones in Italy, the Czech Republic, and Russia. A potato-like vegetable was the source of the grain that archaeologists speculate was mixed with water and baked on a hot stone producing an unleavened bread similar to today’s pita or roti.
Archaeobotanical evidence of bread baked 14,400 years was discovered in Jordan in 2018.
Evidence of leavened bread was found in an Egyptian Old Kingdom tomb that dated back four and a half millennia. The bread was leavened with wild yeast just as sourdough bread is today. The ancient Egyptians were known to be skilled bread bakers and beer brewers.
Humans are thought to have begun cultivating emmer einkorn, two ancient forms of today’s wheat, in the Fertile Crescent 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.
Seamus Blackley, an American theoretical physicist, and one of the scientists behind the development of Microsoft’s Xbox, is also an amateur baker and Egyptologist. Learning that there were 4,500 year-old Egyptian vessels in the Peabody Essex Museum and Museum of Fine Arts in Boston’s collection that were used to make beer and bread, he wanted to try baking bread from the ancient yeast that was found embedded in the ceramic vessels.
Working with University of Iowa microbiology doctoral candidate Richard Bowman, they collected the yeast. Blackley chose emmer for the loaf and leavened the dough with yeast from the Egyptian vessels.
The result? An impressive loaf that Blackley reported was light and airy with an incredible aroma and flavor.
Irish Soda Bread Recipe
Preheat oven to 400º
Line a round pizza pan, cookie sheet, or 12 inch cast iron skillet with parchment paper or mist lightly with cooking spray.
3 3/4 cup all-purpose flour (16 oz) (450g)
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda (not baking powder)
1 2/3 cup buttermilk or substitute* (13 oz) (365 g)
1. Mix flour and salt in a large mixing bowl.
2. Measure ½ tsp. baking soda and place in the palm of your hand. Use your fingers to crush out all lumps. Alternatively, pass the baking soda through a small sieve. Add to dry ingredients and mix well. Note: It is vital to rid the baking soda of all lumps. Biting into a nugget of baking soda is unpleasant!
3. Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour the buttermilk (or its substitute*) into it. Using a large spoon or spatula, carefully mix the ingredients until all the flour has been absorbed. It will be lumpy and moist. Do not over stir; stop stirring as soon as the flour disappears.
4. Generously sprinkle countertop with flour and scrape the dough on top of it. Dust your hands with flour and quickly form dough into a ball. Do not knead. Press the dough into a disk about two inches thick.
5. Using a serrated knife, cut two slashes across the bread to form a cross or an X. Carefully lift the dough and place it on the baking pan.
6. Bake for 45 minutes until the top is golden brown. If you have a thermometer, the bread will be done when it reaches 180º. Another way to test doneness is to remove the loaf from the oven, turn it on its side, and thump the back with a spoon. It should sound hollow.
7. Eat warm or at room temperature. Store by wrapping tightly in foil. Irish soda bread is good toasted.
*Buttermilk substitute. Stir 2 scant Tbs. fresh lemon juice or white vinegar into 1 2/3 cup milk (whole, 2%, or 1%). Let stand for 5 minutes. It will thicken slightly. Soy or nut milk may also be used.
Tip
Watch a pro mix Irish Soda Bread dough—Darina Allen’s stellar video is about six minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WP38s55anpM
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