(no subject)

[kamomil]

Dammit - I made another ugly loaf of soda bread. The crust is hard and burnt, inside it's still a bit doughy in places. It should have a dense moist texture, which it has somewhat. It tastes okay, due to some sugar in that particular recipe - okay but still not really the way I remember my grandma's bread tasting. Then there's the issues of in Europe how they measure by weight, and in N. America, it's by volume. It's supposed to have buttermilk, and I use milk that I've just put a few tablespoons of vinegar or lemon juice to sour it... maybe there's something in the buttermilk that does chemical magic that I'm missing. I think my baking soda might be too old. So there's many things that might be going wrong here. :D

But I just did some productive googling, and found out that in Ireland, they have mostly flour made from soft wheat, whereas in Canada, that's called pastry flour, bread flour is made from hard wheat. All-purpose flour is somewhere in between. So I'm going to go see if I can locate some pastry flour, that might be the majority of my problem, as every single loaf of soda bread I've made has been either too tough inside, or the crust was too hard, or both.

As it's supposed to be made with whole wheat flour, and there doesn't seem to be a whole wheat pastry flour (go figure! LOL) I'm going to have to try to use half all-purpose whole-wheat, for authenticity, and half pastry flour, for the right texture. It's supposed to be mostly or entirely from whole wheat flour.

Hopefully this finally works. I'm not exactly jumping off my chair to try baking again tomorrow, but I'll see if I can locate the flour at least, ready for the next time I feel like baking.

Comments

[gabbytheguy.livejournal.com]

I made soda bread A LOOOOONG time ago when I was at Uni in Northern Ireland. You could buy buttermilk, or sour milk right at the supermarket in bottles as you would regular milk which even for this Brit I found completely bizarre.

I don't recall (since I was an impoverished student) really using any fancy ingredients, special flour, or the like, but I also don't recall how good or bad the outcome was of the soda bread.

Sorry - I'm not much help am I?

[kamomil.livejournal.com]

well in different regions, different products are available, so I'm guessing it was the "right" type of flour without your even knowing it. Apparently there's a thing called "bread soda" but I'll have to google exactly what that is. Turns out it's just baking soda. :P

Soda bread doesn't strike me as a very studenty thing to make. I guess when in Rome...

[gabbytheguy.livejournal.com]

Well, it was kind of a local thing to make, but it was also cheap and a change from regular bread.

[sapphire-77.livejournal.com]

Check out www.foodireland.com It has all sorts of Irish groceries and such and may have the flour you need. Good luck! :)