Easy peasy Irish soda bread with parmesan cheese

Difficulty 1/5

Bread… what an amazing invention. That smell of bread that just came out the oven is completely irresistible. Given that right now I’m in Dublin, I thought it was apropiate to share this recipe with you. It’s soooo easy! It doesn’t even need yeast; it’s actually called soda bread because it uses bicarbonate of soda and baking powder. It’s more compact than a yeasted bread but it’s completely exquisite. I love to toast it and put some butter on it… YUM! As always, it’s my version of the recipe with some changes I like in my baked goods, like the parmesan cheese. You can also put raisins instead or nuts if you want it on the sweet side.

Portions: 1bread of approximately 10 slices

Ingredients:
– 500g all purpose flour
– 15g baking powder
– 5g bicarbonate of soda
– 10g salt
– 50g unsalted butter
– 10g sugar
– 250 greek or natural yogurt (it can ven be soy or lactose free)
– 75g milk (gain, it can be skimmed or lactose free. I haven’t tried it with almond or coconut milk)

Procedure:
1. Sieve the dry ingredients and mix them. Then add the butter (freshly taken from the fridge so it’s hard) cut up into cubes.
2. Just like we do for the quiche dough, pinch the butter between you fingers with the flour until there are no traces of butter and it has completely merged with the flour. If you have a food processor, put the dry ingredients and the butter and mix until no butter pieces are left.
3. Grate the parmesan and mix.
4. Add the wet ingredients and mix first with a spatula and then using your hands until it’s very homogeneous. Don’t overwork it more than necessary or it will become tough.5. Make a tight ball with the dough and put it either on baking paper or silpat mat. Sieve some flour on top.
6. Traditionally, this bread will have a cross on top, so that’s how I did it. It’s important you do it AFTER you sieved the flour on top. Only go down about half a cm or it will open up like a flower. This goes in the oven at 170C for 40min and thenn at 130C for 20min for it to completely dry out.

Let it cool down a bit before you cut it so it doesn’t fall apart and done 🙂 Bread ready for breakfast or tea time. With parmesan cheese… YUMMY.