Dill Soda Bread

Nothing goes better with minestrone than some warm crusty bread.  So I decided to try my hand at making some soda bread. I have never actually made bread before and as such I thought I should stick to something relatively easy.  Therefore I came up with Soda Bread.

Soda Bread is an Irish style of bread, made with bicarbonate of soda as the raising agent – hence the name.  Instead of plain bread, I added some chopped dill, which seems to be my favourite herb of the moment.

Dill Soda Bread

Ingredients:

2 cups of plain flour
2 cups of self raising flour
60 grams of butter, cubed
2 tsp of bicarb soda
2 1/4 cups of buttermilk
1/3 cup chopped Dill
1 tsp of salt

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

2. Sift the flours, salt and bicarb soda into a large bowl.

3. Add the butter and rub into the flour mixture.

4. Add the buttermilk and dill and mix to form a dough.

5. Cover a section your kitchen bench with glad wrap (I do this to make cleaning up easier) that will provide enough room to knead the dough.  Dust with flour.

6. Turn out the dough onto the floured surface and knead to form a ball shape.

7. Cover a baking tray with baking paper and place the ball into the middle of the tray and score the middle of the ball with a knife to form a cross.

8. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes.