Gluten Free Soda Bread

There is nothing better than the smell of freshly baked bread. Before I was forcibly removed from the world of bakeries, patisseries & general glutenous products I absolutely adored making bread.

Every Saturday morning I would get up, prepare my dough & leave it to prove whilst I pottered around doing the life admin that a Saturday morning usually entails. I experimented with flavours, baking styles, flatbreads, sourdough, rolls…you name it, I did it.

So when this became ‘unavailable’ to me I pretty much shunned the bread world entirely as I wasn’t going to swap my lovely, crusty loaves for shop-bought, ready sliced ones. Now this is probably because I am a bread snob but in my defence the stuff on offer back then was pretty shoddy!

I have experimented with gluten free baking in the past, my Chickpea Focaccia being another winner.

The issue when you remove gluten is that you decrease the elasticity of the dough & so it can become quite dense. By using a mix of flours in this recipe you maximise the taste of the finished loaf whilst preventing this. The Xanthum gum jumps in to replace the binding nature of the gluten (you can easily find it in Free From sections in large supermarkets or online) & the bicarbonate/baking powder combination maximises the rise.

And the final fab thing? Because it’s soda bread you simply chuck everything in a bowl, mix it for a couple of minutes & ignore it in the oven for just under an hour! No proving, knocking back or waiting all day for the smell of fresh, crusty bread to fill your kitchen 😀