Brown butter soda bread with honey- cinnamon butter

Posted on March 8, 2012 by bilrob

Brown butter soda bread with honey- cinnamon butter

My Mother-in-Law apparently makes the best Irish Soda Bread. My son Brooks spends weekends sometimes with his grandparents and comes home raving about his Grammy’s homemade bread. Wouldn’t you think he’d like Mom-the-Recipe-Girl’s recipes for soda bread the best? Nope- Grammy has always had his heart won on hers. The funny thing is- I don’t even think she follows a recipe! I’ve never seen one written, but I suppose I’ll have to do some heavy investigating. In the meantime, I messed with Bon Appetit’s recipe for Brown Butter Soda Bread to create my own twist on this bread.

BA’s version was a savoury sort. I took the savoury out of it and turned it into sweet instead. The bread itself isn’t sweet, but I didn’t want rosemary or other spices mixing flavors with the dried currants that I wanted to add. The most difficult part of this recipe is browning the butter, which takes all of 4 minutes on the stove and is super easy to do. Take the time to brown the butter- it has magical flavors!

The dough is super easy to work with- I mixed in a little whole wheat flour to my recipe. No yeast is involved, and it just pats together into two small loaves.
Cut (score) an X into the tops of the loaves. The “X” allows the bread to expand properly while cooking (and let steam escape). It also provides for a visually appealing look to the surface of the bread. Thanks to The Fresh Loaf for their awesome bread-scoring tutorial!

Brush with a little bit of egg white wash. And bake until golden and crispy on the outside.

While my bread was baking, I assembled a sweet butter to go with it. Mix softened butter with a good drizzle of honey and a sprinkle of cinnamon. And you’ll see how amazing this is when spread onto warm soda bread. It’s a must, really.

Ready for eating. I suggest just tearing off a warm chunk of bread and having a go at it. My family of three ploughed through 1 1/2 of these small loaves during our dinner where salad was our main dish. It was very easy to eat, and the honey butter was so good that I had to make more!

I think Grammy might have some competition here. Brooks really, really enjoyed this soda bread. Did he like it better than Grammy’s? Well… when I asked him, he wouldn’t respond. So either he didn’t want to hurt my feelings or he didn’t want to hurt Grammy’s. I think he was kinda smart to keep those thoughts to himself
Check out Jessica’s version of this recipe on How Sweet it Is for a savoury version of Brown Butter Soda Bread.
brown butter soda bread. Yield: 2 small, round loaves of bread. Prep Time: 25 min Cook Time: 45 min

Ingredients:

Soda Bread:
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup oats
1 tablespoon packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup dried currants
1 egg white, beaten
Honey- Butter (optional):
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 tablespoon honey
1 or 2 shakes of ground cinnamon

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
2. Melt the butter in small saucepan over medium heat until melted and golden brown (stirring often and keeping a close eye), 3 to 4 minutes. Remove the pan from heat and set it aside to cool.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, oats, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir in the brown butter and buttermilk until the flour mixture is moistened and comes together.
4. Turn the dough out onto a well-floured work surface. Sprinkle the currants on top and knead them gently into the dough until the dough comes together, about 7 turns. Divide the dough in half. Shape each half into ball, and lightly flatten each into 6-inch round. Place the rounds on ungreased baking sheet, spacing 5 inches apart. Use a knife to cut a 1/2-inch deep “X” in the top of each round of dough. Brush the tops with the egg wash.
5. Bake the loaves until they turn deep golden brown and tester inserted into centre comes out clean, about 40 to 45 minutes. Cool breads on rack at least 10 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.
6. If you’d like to make the honey butter, just mix the butter with honey and cinnamon in a small bowl until blended. Serve with the bread.

Tips:
Tip from Bon Appetit:
*You’ll get the most tender soda bread by kneading the dough gently and briefly, just until it comes together, so the gluten is minimally developed.
Bread Making with Bill & Sheila

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A lesson in quick (and convenient) bread

Posted on March 5, 2012 by bilrob

A lesson in quick (and convenient) bread

Some of the simplest baking products to make are quick bread.

As the name implies, quick bread can be made in a shorter amount of time than traditional yeast bread. Examples are banana bread, muffins, scones, etc., and although easier, there is still information worth knowing.

The biggest and most obvious difference between yeast bread and quick bread is that quick bread is not leavened with yeast. The term “leavening” is defined as creating and capturing gases in a baked product to produce structure and height. As yeast ferments, with the help of sugar, it creates gas that causes the holes visible in bread. Quick bread relies on leaveners such as baking soda, baking powder, steam, eggs and air to give a similar effect.

Baking soda and baking powder are considered chemical leaveners. Baking soda is sodium bicarbonate and it requires liquid and an acid to make a gaseous reaction. It is usually added to recipes that have a naturally occurring acid in the ingredients. This acid can be found in items such as buttermilk, yogurt, sour cream, honey, molasses and fruits.

The amount of baking soda used is determined and balanced by the amount of these acids occurring in the recipe’s ingredients. Baking powder, on the other hand, is a complete leavener, as it only requires liquid for it to react in the same manner. The reason for this is that it contains a mixture of baking soda and the balanced amount of acid, along with starch to help prevent lumping. This is why you will see some recipes call for baking powder and others with baking powder and/or baking soda. A good comparison of this is a pancake recipe compared to a buttermilk pancake recipe.

Most quick bread recipes consist of mixing dry and wet ingredients in two separate bowls first before combining them.

Not only are quick breads fast, they are also very tender. This is due to the limited production of gluten in the mixing process. When flour and liquid are mixed together, gluten is formed. Gluten is most recognizable as the elastic feeling in yeast bread dough that has been kneaded. The longer flour and liquid are mixed, the more gluten is created. Quick breads are similar to the texture of cakes and, thus, one should not over-mix to ensure a delicate composition.

Regardless of which chemical leaveners you use, the batter should go into the oven immediately once mixed together, as the gases start producing immediately when the liquid is added. If using eggs and air to leaven, bake immediately before it deflates, for optimal results.

Once in the oven, heat will convert moisture in the batter to steam. The steam, air and gasses from leavening will be trapped in the batter, giving the product height and a fluffy texture.
Bread Making with Bill & Sheila
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Irish Soda Bread - Always A Treat For St. Patrick's Day

Posted on March 4, 2012 by bilrob

Soda bread - an integral part of an Ulster Fry.

Irish Soda Bread – Always A Treat For St. Patrick’s Day

Soda bread is a variety of quick bread traditionally made in a variety of cuisines in which sodium bicarbonate (otherwise known as baking soda) is used as a raising agent rather than the more common yeast. The ingredients of traditional soda bread are flour, bread soda, salt, and buttermilk. The buttermilk in the dough contains lactic acid, which reacts with the baking soda to form tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide. Other ingredients can be added such as raisins, egg or various nuts.

Before the European settlement of the Americas, the Indigenous peoples of the Americas used soda or pearl ash, more commonly known as potash (pot ash) or potassium carbonate, as a leavening agent (the forerunner to baking soda) in quick breads). In modern times in the US, Soda breads as a quick and cheap method of bread making were first publicised by Amelia Simmons in her American Cookery, published in 1796. By 1824, The Virginia Housewife by Mary Randolph was published containing a recipe for Soda Cake.

In Europe, soda breads began to appear in the mid-19th century when bicarbonate of soda first became available for use as a rising agent. Breads, griddle cakes and scones with bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar or tartaric acid became popular in Austria, Polish cuisine (as do Pieczenia-Proziaki) and in the British Isles. Traditional soda bread, eaten in Serbian cuisine, also uses bicarbonate of soda, particularly the traditional ?esnica (Serbian Cyrillic: ???????), a soda bread made at Christmas.

In Ireland, the flour is typically made from soft wheat; so soda bread is best made with a cake or pastry flour (made from soft wheat), which has lower levels of gluten than a bread flour. In some recipes, the buttermilk is replaced by live yoghurt or even stout. Bakers recommend the minimum amount of mixing of the ingredients before baking; the dough should not be kneaded.

Various forms of soda bread are popular throughout Ireland. Soda breads are made using either wholemeal or white flour. In Ulster, the wholemeal variety is usually known as wheaten bread and normally sweetened, while the term “soda bread” is restricted to the white savoury form. In more southern parts of Ireland, the wholemeal variety is usually known as brown soda and is almost identical to the Ulster wheaten (with a very slight difference).

The Soda farl or “Griddle cakes”, “Griddle bread” (or “Soda farls” in Ulster) take a more rounded shape and have a cross cut in the top to allow the bread to expand. The griddle cake or farl is a more flattened type of bread. It is cooked on a griddle allowing it to take a more flat shape and split into four sections. The Soda Farl is one of the distinguishing elements of the Ulster Fry, where it is served alongside potato bread, also in farl form.

Even though it is called “Irish Soda Bread,” this isn’t a traditional bread recipe that involves yeast, multiple risings and lots of kneading. It’s a pretty easy recipe.

Sometimes it can be a tad bland, so you need to add some punch. I saw Ina Garten from the Barefoot Contessa add orange zest to her recipe on her show. That really makes a difference. She doesn’t add caraway seeds to hers, but I do as I like their unique flavor.

You can use currants or raisins in this recipe.

I like to bake my Irish Soda Bread in a 9″ x 9″ brownie pan. It can be baked in a round pie plate as well so it can be cut in its traditional pie wedges. Either way, this is delicious warm out of the oven or toasted the next day. A little butter tastes pretty good on it, too.

Easy Irish Soda Bread

4 cups all-purpose flour

4 T unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1 tsp. baking soda

1 1/2 tsp. salt

4 T sugar

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 cup currants or raisins mixed with a little flour

1 tsp. finely grated orange rind

1/2 tsp. caraway seeds

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 9×9 square pan or pie plate well and place a piece of parchment paper fitted to its base. Grease over the parchment paper.

In a large mixing bowl, add about half the measured flour. Add the butter pieces and with a pastry knife, mix in the butter until it is incorporated and in tiny pieces. Add the remaining flour, baking soda, salt and sugar and mix well.

Add the buttermilk and egg and with a big spoon, combine well. The dough will be very sticky.

Stir in the currants or raisins, orange rind and caraway seeds.

Pour the dough into the prepared pan.

Bake for about 45 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Cool in the pan for about 10 minutes on a baking rack. Serve warm or toasted with butter or jam if desired.

Bread Making with Bill & Sheila
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Brown butter soda bread with honey- cinnamon butter