Give us this day
The line about bread was the one that always stuck in my head during those primary school daily recitations of the Lord's Prayer. It was years before I actually saw the words written down so most of it was just a mumbled chant with odd words picked out here and there, but that line, the one about daily bread, I knew that one, the words were crisp and clear and made perfect sense.
I have always loved bread, I flirted briefly with the Atkins diet, I think I even bought the book, but to give up bread? Just too hard.
When I moved to England at 18 to go to college I was initially horrified to find that my daily breads were not readily available. At that time most of the, now quite fashionable, Irish breads had not made it to the shelves of English supermarkets. There was no wheaten bread to eat with my soup, potato bread was scarce and not as good, soda farls - the essential accompaniment to a fried egg, were noticeable only in their absence and worst of all, no Veda bread. Back then I could have eaten a whole loaf of Veda, thick slices toasted on the Aga, eaten dripping in butter. In fact I could eat a whole loaf now but the results would be rather more obvious on my hips.
As a student I worked evenings in a London Irish bar where a kind middle-aged mammy took pity upon me and brought me a loaf of home-baked wheaten bread once a week, it was perfect, a little taste of home, I had to hide it from my house-mates.
I suppose given my fondness for bread it is no surprise that I would eventually start to bake my own. I began, like so many, with a bread machine, eventual frustrations with its limitations and I began to knead the dough using the dough hook in my Kenwood and then one day, I started kneading it myself. That's pretty much how I always do it now, i still use the Kenwood for very sticky doughs but mostly I knead by hand and what once seemed an impossible chore is now second nature and no trouble at all.
I make plenty of Irish breads too, using baking soda and buttermilk, their craggy exterior breaks open to a dense, chewy interior, best eaten warm with cold salted butter.
Sadly I have yet to perfect a recipe for Veda bread and it does not seem it will ever make it over the water, it remains ever a speciality of the North of Ireland. When my dad comes to visit, he is instructed to bring as many loaves as he can and you can bet he isn't the only one crossing the water with a bag filled with Veda bread. A dark malted loaf, no fruit, it is impossible to find the exact recipe but I'll keep trying, keep experimenting.
The bread pictured in this post is a White Soda Loaf, made following a recipe in the Rachel Allen book, Bake
The line about bread was the one that always stuck in my head during those primary school daily recitations of the Lord's Prayer. It was years before I actually saw the words written down so most of it was just a mumbled chant with odd words picked out here and there, but that line, the one about daily bread, I knew that one, the words were crisp and clear and made perfect sense.
I have always loved bread, I flirted briefly with the Atkins diet, I think I even bought the book, but to give up bread? Just too hard.
When I moved to England at 18 to go to college I was initially horrified to find that my daily breads were not readily available. At that time most of the, now quite fashionable, Irish breads had not made it to the shelves of English supermarkets. There was no wheaten bread to eat with my soup, potato bread was scarce and not as good, soda farls - the essential accompaniment to a fried egg, were noticeable only in their absence and worst of all, no Veda bread. Back then I could have eaten a whole loaf of Veda, thick slices toasted on the Aga, eaten dripping in butter. In fact I could eat a whole loaf now but the results would be rather more obvious on my hips.
As a student I worked evenings in a London Irish bar where a kind middle-aged mammy took pity upon me and brought me a loaf of home-baked wheaten bread once a week, it was perfect, a little taste of home, I had to hide it from my house-mates.
I suppose given my fondness for bread it is no surprise that I would eventually start to bake my own. I began, like so many, with a bread machine, eventual frustrations with its limitations and I began to knead the dough using the dough hook in my Kenwood and then one day, I started kneading it myself. That's pretty much how I always do it now, i still use the Kenwood for very sticky doughs but mostly I knead by hand and what once seemed an impossible chore is now second nature and no trouble at all.
I make plenty of Irish breads too, using baking soda and buttermilk, their craggy exterior breaks open to a dense, chewy interior, best eaten warm with cold salted butter.
Sadly I have yet to perfect a recipe for Veda bread and it does not seem it will ever make it over the water, it remains ever a speciality of the North of Ireland. When my dad comes to visit, he is instructed to bring as many loaves as he can and you can bet he isn't the only one crossing the water with a bag filled with Veda bread. A dark malted loaf, no fruit, it is impossible to find the exact recipe but I'll keep trying, keep experimenting.
The bread pictured in this post is a White Soda Loaf, made following a recipe in the Rachel Allen book, Bake
Comments
Home made bread of any type is the best though!
Mx
Your loaf looks lovely and I think that I can, almost, smell it.
I have a little experiment going not eating(and therefore not baking) any sweets so I substituted bread baking to get my fix. Strangely as I am a sweet tooth, I don't miss eating sugar,but I really miss the baking!
You've got me very curious about the Veda!
Very intrigued by the Veda bread. And what do you think of the 'Five Minutes a Day' book?
K x
And I did Atkins for a while too and was very svelte ;-), but at what a price. I think the day I decided to give it up, I ate a whole loaf of bread!
G
And I looked up Rachel Allen's soda bread recipe. I'm going to try it today - thank you!
It always amuses me what we all schlep backwards and forwards over frontiers for relations who "live in exile". People bring me Marmite and Bovril and Christmas puddings , I take them peanut butter and licorice and Rookworst . Someone even sends me the occasional haggis .
http://leafgreenknits.wordpress.com/
Since moving to Ollie and our own place, we've been making our own bread too. Ollie is the bread maker and he LOVES the kneading stage. I get to punch the dough though.. does that count?? :)