treacle soda bread (with sesame seeds)

This has been a very productive revision session guys(!)

Well it's Friday night so it doesn't really matter, besides I've been desperate to post this all week but couldn't get the photos sorted because the application wasn't working properly, 'twas very annoying indeed.  

Just realised just now that this bread recipe is from the same recipe book at the last post! I have loads of baking books with little sticky notes in them with the hope one day I will bake them, I just need to get a move on. This is one of those books where you want to bake everything out of the whole book, possibly at the same time, and taste test all of them, I'm sure humans will evolve to have more arms purely for cooking purposes.

I cannot praise this bread enough though, it was eaten within less than two day (remember there is only three of us in the house), I'm pretty positive I ate over half of it. It's also the second time I'd baked it within two weeks after never trying the recipe before. At first I thought that something had gone wrong with the bread as the texture was so dense (as you can see in the photo above) but after a second baking I determined this is how is was suppose to be which is probably how I ended up eating over half of it.....I've never baked a soda bread before so I hope this is the right texture if anyone would like to advise me? 

I couldn't get over how fast it was either, I had mixed and baked it in under an hour and was tapping it persistently to find out when it was cool enough to slice open and try a slice! 

I just loved this massive craggy slit that appeared in the side of the bread too (in the photo above), I'm guessing it's because of the super fast reaction with the bicarb. 

 Having never made a soda bread before I was completely and utterly shocked and kinda surprised at the ingredients it has in it, it doesn't have buttermilk in it which I read is very common in soda bread recipes. This was a good thing for me though because it's sometimes quite hard to get hold of round here and it was only half way through I noticed I needed natural yogurt which luckily is always in our fridge (disaster diverted).

 It also has sesame seeds in the actual bread which I'm hoping you might be able to see in the photo above, it was also rolled in them before going in the oven, it gave it a really nice texture both inside and out. Other interesting things in the mix were ground ginger, butter and an egg! But I've now read that this is common in soda bread so it's all okay. 

TOP TIP

 My tip for baking this is not to take it out of the over too soon like I did the first time!!! So the second time I left it in another 10 minutes from when it sounded hollow to tap and then left it in the oven to cool. If it gets brown too quickly cover it in tin foil and continue baking it because no one likes raw bread! 

Treacle soda bread (with sesame seeds) 

• 350 grams wholemeal flour
• 115 grams of plain flour
• 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
• teaspoon of salt
• 3 tablespoons of sesame seeds
• 1 teaspoon of light muscavado sugar
• 1 teaspoon on ground ginger
• 25 grams of chilled cubed butter
• 1 egg
• 300 ml of natural yogurt
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of black treacle

1. preheat the oven to 200oC/ 400oF/ gas mark 6 and put a baking sheet in to heat
2. mix the flours, bicarb and salt in a bowl before adding 2/3 of the sesame seeds, the sugar and ginger, mix well before rubbing in the butter to make bread crumbs
3. boil a kettle and while doing this whisk the yogurt and egg in a separate bowl
4. once the kettle has boiled pour the water into a mug and sit a tablespoon in it for a minute to heat (this makes it 10 times easier to get neat tablespoons of treacle), using the heated spoon put the black treacle in with the yogurt and egg and whisk once more
5. add the wet ingredient into dry and mix with a spoon until a dough forms (add more yogurt or flour depending on wetness/ dryness), knead once or twice in the bowl until it all comes together 
6. make into a boule shape and roll in the remaining sesame seeds, place on the heated baking sheet carefully, using a sharp knife make the iconic cross shape in the top
7. place in the preheated oven for 10 minutes (so it gets a nice crust) then cool the oven to 180oC/ 350oF/ gas mark 4 and bake for another 40- 45 minutes (read top tip on timing)
8. take out and leave to cool or a wire rack before slicing and enjoying warm with butter!