Following on from this post. One of my brothers sent me e-mail asking if I remember how to make soda bread, “like mum used to make”
Paul Rankin makes a fabulous one you can buy in the supermarket! is what I was thinking.
We began to recall some more childhood food memories
Fresh Bread in the morning.
Mum used to make soda bread plain or with fruit. Both were equally delicious spread with her Irish butter.
But how could something so beautiful come from something so frightening that sat on the kitchen windowsill for days on end prior to the making?
The first day was fine: an open bottle of milk just sitting quietly in the sun.
The next day the cream on the top of the milk looked decidedly thick.
The following day the contents of the bottle had separated into three distinct parts: The milk at the bottom of the bottle, some watery yellow stuff in the middle of the bottle and then the cream beginning to emerge from the top of the bottle.
Now don’t forget we were young and easily scared. And we didn’t know that milk could grow! How could we?
The contents of the bottle on the fourth day no longer resembled the contents of the bottle on the first day.
“Tomorrow we will have some bread,” said mother brightly, inspecting the horror on the windowsill.
What we didn’t know the first time we watched the bread making was, when mum added the contents of the bottle to the dry bread ingredients the smell of the now sour milk was enough to send a child running out of the kitchen!
Thank goodness for my local supermarket, they sell very clean and healthy looking sour cream that stays put in the pot if and when I want to make a sourdough loaf.
Bread Pudding
Now the whole street loved this, warm from the oven, soft and moist with huge plump raisins.
I can see it and smell it even now. Mum used to mix the ingredients in her washing up bowl and then poured it into a huge tray. She sprinkled sugar on the top of the mixture, which then caramelised in the oven to make a beautifully crunchy top. Oh my I could eat some now.
I have never made this and on the very few occasions I have been tempted to buy a square from the bakers I have been terribly disappointed. I expect if I had a nice recipe?
Are there any out there?
I don’t have a photo of soda bread or bread pudding but I did see a heart in my loaf yesterday.
I once asked my Nana for her breadpudding recipe – she laughed and said – first I gather any stale bread and cake until I have enought, then I scrape out the jam from any jars that are nearly finished and add some fruit. It goes on in the same descriptive rather than prescriptive vain – I’ve never tried to make it. But I did love it and miss the smell and taste
Would you believe I have a slice of Paul Rankin’s fruit soda bread in my hand right now? Honestly! I’m having some for my lunch!
Ah, what lovely memories, thanks for sharing them with us 🙂 My poor mother – most of my childhood food memories involve my step-father cooking something delicious or my mother having a culinary disaster!!
I used to have a wonderful bread pudding recipe my father found and wanted me to try. Just recently, I went looking for it, but it seems to have disappeared.
Isn’t it wonderful how many memories, what seems like a simple bread, can evoke? I LOVE soda bread, and used to have a wonderful recipe for it. It was really moist, and that’s what I liked about it. Unfortunately, I misplaced it, and although I have tried 4 others, they don’t compare.
I could take a bite right out of this photo!
xo.
Oh, this has brought back memories! My Mum used to bake soda bread too, and often put raisins in … I am sure I have a old recipe for bread pudding somewhere – I’ll let you know!