Sodabread

Making bread on fire is easier than you think and so delicious. Soda bread dough doesn't use yeast, so you don't have to kneed it or let it rise. It's a really quick recipe!

 Read the entire recipe from start to finish. Trust us! You’ll be more familiar with the steps and cooking the dish will be a stroll in the park. Before you begin, make sure you have a good store fo fire wood, a good fire going. Wash your hands well!

Prepare the Fire

  • Build a big, roaring, fire with plenty of hard wood (beech, oak, ash), then let it die down.
  • You want to have a large bed of good embers, but no flames whatsoever. This can take up to an hour!
  • Find a thick flat stone, a little bigger than the size of your hand, and clean it well with soap and water.
  • Note: Don't use stones from rivers or lakes as they can blow up in a fire!
  • Place the stone on top of embers, in the middle of the fire. Make sure it's stable and can get really hot where it is.

Make the Dough

  •  Mix the flour, soda, salt and sugar in a mixing bowl
  • Add the egg and buttermilk
  • Mix lightly with a fork. Be careful to not overwork the dough: it just needs a quick stir to combine everything.
  • Form pieces the size of a fist or tennis ball, and flatten them slightly. The traditional shape for soda bread on the griddle is triangles, but you can make round shapes, too, of course.
  • If the small breads don't hold their shape, that means the dough is too wet - then add a bit more flour to the mix.

Bake the Breads

  • Place the dough on your stone in the fire, and make sure there are enough hot embers all around the stone (but not touching the dough).
  • Let the bread bake for 5 to 10 minutes. The top should start buckling upwards and it should be starting to turn brown on the bottom.
  • Turn it around and flatten it out a bit.
  • Let it bake for another 5-10 minutes.
  • Before serving let it rest for a few minutes at the side of the fire.

Ingredients

  • 3 cups of self-raising flour
  • 2 tea spoons of bicarbonate of soda
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup of buttermilk (you can make your own buttermilk by squeezing the juice of a lemon into a cup of normal milk and letting it sit there for 10 minutes)
  • 1 tea spoon of salt
  • 1 tea spoon of sugar
  • If you like: butter and jam for serving
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