Soda bread with herbed butter

Serves:

Ingredients

For the bread

• 1½ cups wholemeal flour, plus extra for dusting
• 1 cup spelt flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 2 cups buttermilk, plus extra for brushing

For the herbed butter

• 75g butter, softened
• 1 tsp lemon thyme leaves
• 1 tsp parsley, finely chopped
• 1 green onion, very finely chopped

Method

Preheat the oven to 200°C (180°C). Line a baking tray with baking paper.

To make the bread, combine the flours, bicarbonate of soda and salt in a large bowl.

Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the buttermilk. Stir until the mixture has come together into a sticky dough.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and – mess warning!  –  get the kids to knead the dough, which is quite wet, then shape it into a nice smooth-ish ball. (Everyone involved will probably have seriously sticky and messy hands by now, so the sink will be the next stop.)

Place the dough ball on the lined baking tray. Brush the top of the dough with extra buttermilk and score a few deep slashes across the top. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden-brown on top and hollow sounding when you tap the bottom.

To make the herbed butter, place the butter on a chopping board and smoosh out to a thin patty shape with the back of a spoon. Place the lemon thyme, parsley and green onion on top of the butter patty and bring all of the ingredients together a few times with the spoon until well incorporated. Serve with the warm soda bread.

Notes

• Spelt flour is available at health food shops and many supermarkets. If you don’t have any you could substitute rye flour or extra wholemeal or plain flour.
• With thanks to Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks for inspiring me to try soda bread via her amazing book Super Natural Every Day.
• This recipe was created by Sophie Hansen .

Serving Suggestions

Note