This is how you do it: Black Velvet in one hand, big, 1 kilo slab of soda bread in the other. Bubbling pan of Guinness Beef Stew on the stove, spuds and cabbage ready for the Colcannon.
The bread started life as Waterford Soda Bread in Dan Lepard’s The Handmade Loaf published 20 years ago. According to my Big Black Book (an early form of recording data with pencil and paper – pre-spreadsheet even!) by November 2007 the recipe had become:
Wholemeal Wheat Flour – 420g
Wheatgerm – 80g
Butter – 30g
Baking Soda – 6g
Salt – 6g
Buttermilk – 476g
Milk – 24g
Honey – 12g
Now that I’m milling my own flour I can produce coarse wholemeal and I’ve plenty of bran, perfect for soda bread. So the bran substitutes for the wheatgerm. Being in possession of a jar of Cosyn Cymru finest ewes’ yoghurt I used that instead of the buttermilk, and, because it is set, used it half-and-half with the milk – 250g each (even then I had to add a good extra dash of milk to the mix).
So, preheat the oven to 200C (same top and bottom in the Pico). I used a 7″ square roasting tin, buttered and well sprinkled with bran.
Mix the flour and bran and rub in the butter. Mix in the soda and salt. In a separate bowl mix the liquids and the honey. Cut a square of kitchen foil big enough to cover the tin (stops the middle from rising too much according to Mr Lepard).
When you are ready to bake, stir the liquids into the flour mix, scrape the mix into the tin, smooth the surface, sprinkle with bran, cover with foil and get it straight in the oven.
Bake for 25 minutes, remove the foil and bake for a second 25 minutes.
The odd slice, still just slightly warm from the oven and given a good buttering, is all you need for a nibble as you sip your Black Velvet and wait for the stew to reach perfection.
From the speakers, Frank Harte, Donal Lunny, Lankum, Planxty, Moving Hearts, Andy Irvine, Christy Moore, Skippers Alley – there’s a few days’ worth to choose from …
The PArtisan Baker 