Weekly (COVID-19) Kefir Soda Bread Baking!

Baking is my new way of destressing while the city/province/country is pretty much on a lockdown. Yes, I’ve jumped the bandwagon, but unlike most people, I haven’t been making sourdough. Instead, I’ve been making soda bread. It’s so much easier and quicker as there’s no need to wait for a rise nor does it take hours. I’ve found a relatively easy, three ingredient recipe online and have been making that. It’s very easy, using only self-raising flour (technically, the original recipe has MORE ingredients (baking soda, salt and the flour, but that’s what self-raising flour is), a bit of sugar and kefir (option to use eggs).

I’ve tweaked the recipe a bit from the original, using flours other than a mix of whole wheat and white, but always mixing things up. The first attempt used half quinoa and half spelt. It was good, but a word of warning: quinoa flour is VERY OVERPOWERING. The bread tasted like quinoa in bread form. Not that it’s a bad thing. I LOVE quinoa and it’s basically my rice. My second and third attempts were made with sprouted whole wheat and Kamut and tasted more like breads I get at the store. The third attempt, which was this past weekend, was more or less the same as the previous week’s, with an added egg yolk (which means less kefir).

So how easy is this? To save you from clicking the link above, it’s this:

Ingredients:

• Two cups of flour of your choice (or mix it up)
• 1 tsp salt (omit if you’re using self-raising flour)
• 1tsp baking soda (omit if you’re using self-raising flour)
• 1 cup of kefir of your choice (less if you’re adding an egg…just make sure the liquid adds up to 1 cup)
• 1 tsp of sugar/apple butter/apple sauce
• Garnishes (flax, chia, pumpkin seeds, etc…) to top the bread (entirely optional)

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 450 F
2. While the oven is preheating, line a dutch oven with parchment paper with the paper spilling out of the sides.
3. In one bowl, mix all the dry ingredients and in another, the wet
4. Mix the two ingredients together until mixed through and top with your optional garnishes
5. Once the oven is heated to 450 F, take the parchment paper out of the dutch oven and place it into the oven, along with its lid. Place your batter onto the parchment to shape. Let it sit while the container is heating.
6. Once the 30 minutes is up, place the dough and parchment into the dutch oven and bake for 30-35 minutes with the lid on the pot. Take the lid off to bake for another five minutes
7. The bread can be taken out of the dutch oven immediately to cool on a rack (minimum 30 minutes)

This, like most breads, is freezer-friendly! Just a word of warning: if you slice thickly, you might want to toast longer than usual! Oh, and don’t forget spread. Butter, quark, cream cheese and even hummus works well.

We gave one loaf to my parents. They liked it, but I think they think I’m a bit crazy, but hey, in the old days, bread-making was done all the time. At least some of my Hong Kong relatives haven’t said anything which sounds sarcastic to an Anglophone ear (“WAH!!! GUM GING-AH!!!!,” translating to “wow, that’s SOOOOOOO AMAZING!!!”).

How do YOU destress? Have you been baking? I just ordered a container of (everything) bagel spice and might attempt my next loaf with that! I’ll also continue to experiment with other flours. I plan to use a mix of sweet potato, quinoa and maybe a bit of chickpea some time. Or will that taste weird?