I’ve had quite a few stabs at breadmaking over the years, but I’m afraid they’ve all ended in failure. The loaves haven’t been the problem — some were positively unbrick-like — but it’s the impetus to keep with the new regime that’s been lacking. I just haven’t been won over sufficiently to make it a regular habit.
The problem has been a lack of time. Not necessarily in the making (look up Jim Lahey’s no-knead bread recipe online if you want the best lazy loaf ever), but in all that hanging around while you wait for the yeast to wake up and the dough to prove. Basically, there’s too much of a lag between thinking “I fancy some homemade bread” and the loaf coming out of the oven. Which is why a bread course by Rosemary Shrager that — among the brioches, sourdoughs and focaccias — promises half a dozen loaves that will be ready to eat within the hour, sounds so promising.
There are two types of bread, she explains at her airy new cookery school in Tunbridge Wells, Kent: those that use yeast as a raising agent, and those that use baking soda. It’s the latter group that provide the speedier loaf because the soda acts instantly.
“The trick with baking soda is not to knead it, because working the glutens in the flour will make it dense. You treat it more like a cake, so it’s quicker to make and it’s easier to make. It’s a win-win.”
The only difficult element is judging how much liquid to add. “The more liquid you put into a soda bread the lighter it will be. I make mine the consistency of thick porridge, just thick enough so it can hold its shape on a tray and won’t spread.”
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She sets to work with five types of soda bread: a multiseed loaf ideal with cheese, Mexican flat breads for filling as wraps, a traditional Irish soda bread, which is perfect with smoked salmon, an American style polenta or “corn” bread, traditionally served with chilli con carne, and a potato bread that is cooked in a dry frying pan and is best, she says, with a breakfast fry-up.
Master these, Shrager says, and healthy, nutritious bread will never be more than an hour away. “Water, flour, baking soda and butter: they are all larder ingredients, and the recipes are only guidelines. You could add curry powder to the potato bread, put walnuts in the seeded loaf – anything goes. We didn’t have any buttermilk this morning so I used half plain natural yoghurt and half semi-skimmed milk instead, and the bread turned out just as well. As long as the consistency is right, anything goes.
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Rosemary Shrager Cookery School, The Corn Exchange, The Pantiles, Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent (01892 528700; rosemaryshrager.com). The next bread masterclass is on May 10, £215.