Easy Vegan Soda Bread

I’ve always loved bread but it doesn’t love me, so in recent years I’ve had to avoid it. I feel better if I avoid gluten and yeast most of the time but once in a blue moon I just can’t resist a bit of toast. So I decided to have a go at soda bread. Unfortunately, they usually put egg and/or milk in shop-bought soda bread, and anyway it comes in a plastic bag. So I looked online for vegan soda bread recipes and discovered that they include buttermilk, which is made by adding vinegar to milk and makes the air bubbles form in the dough when it’s cooking. The vegan recipes therefore do the same with plant-based milk. But I didn’t have any of that either, so I thought I’d try substituting plain old water. And it worked! Here’s how: First pre-heat the oven to Gas Mark 6 (200*c, 400*f).

Weigh out 12 ounces of self-raising, gluten-free flour and put it in a mixing bowl. You can add a couple of pinches of salt if you want to.
Separately, add one tablespoon (15ml) of organic apple cider vinegar to 250ml of cold water and mix.
Add the liquid to the flour and mix well with a wooden spoon.

4. Then spoon the moist mixture into a lined loaf tin,

and flatten it with the back of a wet spoon.

5. The next bit is VERY important – I learned this the hard way and still have a scar on my left index finger. Before you put it in the oven, cover the tin with foil. If you don’t, the top crust will bake very hard and the weight you’ll have to put behind your sharp, serrated bread knife to slice through it, could result in a bloody mess 😮

I use if you care foil and greaseproof paper because it’s recycled and eco-friendly. Since this won’t make the foil dirty, you can fold it up afterwards and reuse it 🙂

Oh, I’ve just noticed, on the if you care website, that they have an illustration of a roasted chicken on one of their products, which is very disappointing.

I’ll have to tell them that people who care wouldn’t be roasting chickens. It’s horrible when someone you trusted lets you down.

Anyway, back to the vegan soda bread:

Bake in a medium-hot oven (gas mark 6) for 40 to 45 minutes.

7. Don your oven gloves, hold your head away from the oven when you open the door, take out your loaf, remove the foil and put the bread on a wire rack to cool.

When it’s cool you can use it right away, or freeze it, but what I do at this point is slice up the whole loaf and put a small piece of greaseproof paper in between each slice, wrap it, put it in a container, and then freeze it.

That way, I can take my bread out of the freezer a slice at a time, keeping it fresher for longer.

I prefer mine toasted, so it goes straight from the freezer to the toaster, add some peanut butter, Marmite and baked beans for a delicious nutritious meal in minutes. 😀