EATING IRISH (Soda Bread)

One of the things I like most about being a parent is revisiting stories, traditions, and cultural concepts that I was exposed to as a child.  For the most part I am learning so many new things about things I thought I knew about, but I am also sometimes aghast at the things children are taught in books and in the mass media.  One of my favorite books as a child was the Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  Reading them again as an adult each night with my son has been wonderful. Well it was until I got to the second book that tells the tale of the Wilder family moving to the prairies and essentially stealing land and resources from the Native Americans.  I never realized what a stereotypical and racist slant the book has.  I had to censor the story as I was reading it out loud, which was really hard because they go on and on about it.

So this week I've been reading all kinds of story books about Leprechauns and clover.  I'm not all that much interested in St.Patrick, but I do love the tales of the wee folk and the fauna.  So while I always knew that Leprechauns were little green guys, I didn't realize they were the cobblers to Faeries.  In one of the story books a man named Finn raves on about his mother's soda bread so much that I had a huge craving for some myself.

Last night before I went to bed I whipped up a batch of dough to ferment a bit overnight before I baked a loaf this morning.  I'm in love.  So, if you're feeling like a little Irish spring celebrating at this time of year, do yourself a favour and bake a loaf of this Soda Bread.

SPELT IRISH SODA BREAD

1 1/2 cups organic whole grain spelt flour

1 1/2 cups organic light spelt flour

1/2 Tbsp sea salt

1/4 cup organic coconut sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 cup organic rolled oats

6 Tbsp organic unsalted butter

1 cup organic buttermilk

Method:  Place a pizza stone in the oven and preheat to 375*.  In a bowl, stir to combine the flours, oats, salt, and sugar.  Cut in the butter and then Stir in the buttermilk, cover, and allow to sit at room temperature overnight.  In the morning, sift in the baking soda, knead it into the dough a bit .  Form the dough into a round loaf and make an X with a knife on the the top of the loaf.  Place the loaf on the preheated stone and bake for about an hour.  Set on a rack to cool.
(ps Normally Soda Bread is made by mixing all the ingredients just before you are going to make it, so the baking soda would be stirred into the flour before adding the buttermilk.  While doing this does make it easier to evenly incorporate the baking soda into the dough, it prevents you from being able to soak the flour overnight in buttermilk....)