Soda bread

Getting ready for Lent.

Getting ready for Lent.

Does anyone know why soda bread is traditional during Lent? I really like it, so I don’t understand why it goes away. I picked up a recipe the other day from a Lorraine Pascale video. Now I can’t find the exact video, but the recipe is so easy I can do it in my head already, so here it is, with close-enough US conversions:

Mix together some dry ingredients in a bowl – 1 1/2 cups of white flour and 3/4 cup of whole wheat, a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of baking soda, then make a well in middle and pour in a healthy dollop of honey (okay, call it a heaping tablespoon) about 3 tablespoons of butter and 1 1/4 cup of buttermilk. Mix it together with a spatula, but don’t need it. When it’s a nice and smooth make it into a nice neat ball on parchment paper on a cookie sheet, dividing it half-way through into 4 parts with the floured handle of a wooden spoon. Sprinkle some white flour on it and back for 30 or 40 minutes (30 left mine very tasty but a little too wet to have that traditional dry texture).

Now, get in your time machine and go back to last summer where you can pick some raspberries and make raspberry jam. Return to present. Spread jam on soda bread and eat.

Leave a Reply