Saturday, 29 February 2020

The Guinness and Treacle Soda Bread … the verdict


Before I begin I should say that recipes are meant to be a guide, though it does say “it's wonderfully simple”.

Here's the verdict.

Omit the greasing and lining of the baking tray – as I said I've never done either when baking bread.

The instructions given in the final paragraph of 1 - “... In a jug or second mixing bowl … this will take a little while, but stir patiently ...” are, I think, poor. Taken in the recipe order – Guinness, yogurt and treacle – the Guinness and the yogurt are easy enough, now try measuring the treacle and adding it to the other two ingredients - black treacle is dense, sticky stuff and quite difficult to weigh - you can't retrieve it if you've added too much if it's already submerged in Guinness and yogurt!

By the time you've managed to combine the three “wet” ingredients – always providing you've not jettisoned the mixing bowl and its contents all over the kitchen floor and you've lost the will - any anticipation of a glorious loaf of soda bread has evaporated.

In certain cooking circumstances you can wing it or fly by the seat of your pants. With baking this is not the case – it's important to be accurate and weigh ingredients - your end product will sink – sorry about the pun - if you don't.

I'm not sure whether it's an incomplete recipe or badly written. Is it deliberately vague - surely you want your readers to succeed in their efforts? It's such a pity - with a little more care in the explanation of the method for the “wet stuff” it would make life so much clearer for devoted readers and bakers!

If you glance at my photo guide – separate jugs makes life easy – weighing the black treacle directly into a mixing bowl means you're ready to go - it might not be hands free but you have control of the mixing bowl. By trickling the Guinness into the treacle it loosens quickly. The rest, as they say, is history – or easy peasy!

Next … the taste testing

No comments:

Post a Comment