If I don’t log this somewhere I’ll never find it next time I get home from work and realise there’s no bread! We have a breadmaker which is used 2-3 times a week so we never run out, apart from tonight.  Fortunately I had a recipe for Soda Bread I’d tried thanks to Jax at Liveotherwise, but I couldn’t find the recipe! Time was running out, and I knew it would take 30 minutes to cook, as well as 21 minutes to do the butternut squash, leek, sweet potato soup I had planned. Diasaster!

I found the recipe – I got the oven on and warming up (it’s meant to be 200 degrees), and started off the vegetables in the soup maker. Everything was going well – but I ran out of plain flour! Fortunately I had wholemeal which seemed to work – so I combined the two – but forgot to put the oven on full – and most importantly of all forgot to put a cross on the top of the emergency bread. I now know why this is – it won’t cook inside otherwise – I cut the bread into four and it needed another five minutes to properly cook.

Disaster struck again – the first blend cycle in the soup maker made the top come loose – the 21 minute cycle stopped – argh! My quick fix was to blend the vegetables anyway so they were smooth, then re-start the soup but only have it go for as long as was needed to complete the process – around eight minutes. Crisis averted,  I think….

Fortunately the bread was better for being baked that bit longer, and the soup tasted great too – so much so I scoffed the lot and didn’t take a photo. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

Soup :

3 sweet potatoes
half a butternut squash

(if you’re really lucky, you’ll have a super husband who will chop them all up into chunks the night before so you just throw it into the soup maker)

I chopped and added a leek, then three teaspoons of low-salt bouillon, water up to the maximum mark, and that’s it.

Bread :

200g plain flour
180g wholemeal flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp salt
1 carton of buttermilk

put all dry ingredients into a bowl, and make a well in the middle. Add the buttermilk and mix with a spoon until it becomes a big dough-y ball – now put the large cross on the top (VERY IMPORTANT). Put into the oven and bake for 30 minutes. It’ll be ready when it’s hollow sounding when you knock the bottom. It will also be super-tasty when eaten with freshly made soup.

Extra bonus, the washing up isn’t too difficult afterwards. My jeans are a bit mucky though, dough stains…

full credit to Cherished By Me for the recipe in the first place, thank you. It’s so quick and easy, especially when I’m organised. I’ve written it up now, so I reckon it’s foolproof!