Photo of Rachel Allen courtesy of Ecover
I’ve got a fabulous recipe for you today – a variation on traditional Irish soda bread – soda focaccia. Soda focaccia is just as easy to make as tradition soda bread, and it tastes even better!
But first, let me tell you a bit about how I learned to make this delicious bread. It’s always exciting when you get a chance to meet one of your favourite celebrity chefs – and it’s even better if you actually get to cook with them! A few years ago I attended the Eat Clean, Feel Good Culinary Master Class with Rachel Allen at Cactus Studios in London. Sponsored by Ecover, the Eat Clean Master Class was a chance for journalists and bloggers to cook with one of Ireland’s most popular celebrity chefs, as well as to learn more about Ecover’s Eat Clean, Feel Good initiative.
Soda Focaccia – such an easy recipe!
The first recipe Rachel showed us was for a Soda Focaccia. She took pains to explain that Soda Bread isn’t Italian and Focaccia isn’t Irish, but nevertheless soda bread dough can be used to make a quick and easy focaccia style bread.
Photo courtesy of Ecover
All you need to make it is flour, salt, baking soda, buttermilk, olive oil and some rosemary.
If you haven’t got any buttermilk on hand, you can substitute sour milk by adding a couple of teaspoons of vinegar to fresh milk and letting it sit until it begins to curdle a bit.
After sifting the flour, soda and salt together, simply add the buttermilk and mix the dough with your hands. When the dough comes together, turn it out on to a flour board and just turn it once or twice in the flour. Never knead soda bread. Then the dough is rolled or spread out in a rough rectangle with your fingers on to an oiled pan.
Using your fingertips, poke some focaccia like holes in the dough and place sprigs of rosemary in the holes. Then drizzle the soda focaccia with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Then just pop it in the oven to bake.
We then had a chance to make the soda focaccia ourselves. We each had our own little kitchen station to work in, and Rachel came round to help us.
All our soda focaccia came together really well. Unfortunately, the ovens had been set a bit too hot so they were a bit overcooked, but they were still very tasty!
Photo courtesy of Ecover
Rachel’s Soda Focaccia Recipe
Rachel Allen’s Soda Focaccia
Ingredients
- 1 pound 450 grams plain flour plus a little bit extra for the bread board
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 level teaspoon bicarbonate of soda bicarbonate of soda is also known as baking soda
- 12 to 14 ounces 350 to 400 ml buttermilk or sour milk
- Rosemary
- Sea salt for sprinkling
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C or 180°C for a fan oven).
- Brush a 9 x 13 inch (23 x 33 cm) baking tin with olive oil.
- Sift the flour, salt and baking soda into a large bowl.
- Make a well in the centre.
- Pour all but a couple of ounces of the buttermilk into the well.
- Using one hand with the fingers outstretched like a claw, mix in the flour from the sides of the bowl until the dough comes together. It should be soft, but not too wet and sticky. If necessary, add the rest of the buttermilk, a bit at a time.
- Turn the dough on to a floured bread board and just turn it in the flour, shaping the dough into a rough circle.
- Put the dough on the oiled baking tin and roll it out into a circular shape.
- Make little holes, or dimples, in the dough with your fingertips.
- Pop some rosemary sprigs in the holes and drizzle the focaccia with olive oil.
- Sprinkle with the sea salt.
- Bake the focaccia for 20 to 30 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through.
- Drizzle a little more oil over top, allow to cool slightly and then serve.
Notes
This is not a sponsored post. I was invited to attend the Eat Clean, Feel Good Master Class by Ecover and I received a gift bag to take home from the event.
How lovely you got to meet Rachel April. I love her style of cooking and recipes.
Anne xx
Me too, Anne. Rachel really was lovely and I so enjoyed meeting her.
I just adore Rachel Allen! I was so excited to meet her when I was in Ireland…this must have been a fun experience! The mash-up looks amazing to me 🙂
She really is lovely, isn’t she! That’s so cool that you met her in Ireland, Heather. I have been trying to get to Ballymaloe for ages, but I never seem to manage to be in Cork when they are running courses. I’m going to be in Cork for a few days in a couple weeks but they are not doing their normal afternoon courses that week! (They are doing a week long special course instead and I’m not there for long enough!) One of these days I will manage it 🙂