The Art of Zen Living

Welcome to the second edition of Dough!  I really enjoy doing these articles, because I get to play with the camera and I get to eat the results.  This week I made what is not a traditional Irish soda bread.  It’s more of an American St. Paddy’s Day Traditional Irish soda cake.  It’s also delightful.

I was going to make an honest to goodness Irish soda bread, but the recipe on the Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread’s website had a warning that a fluid cup contains 8 ounces of liquid. A dry ingredient cup contains around 4 ounces by weight. It threw me a bit, and I don’t have a kitchen scale. I think I’ve worked out the conversion, so I’ll try the “real deal” traditional soda bread next time. For now, let’s take a look at what we’re going to be snacking on this Memorial Day Weekend at The Art of Zen Living!

The recipe I chose I actually got from Cheap Eats.  So what do we need?

4 cups flour
3 tbsp sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 cup butter, softened
(plus 1 Tbs extra for brushing)
1 cup buttermilk
(plus 1 Tbs extra for brushing)
1 egg
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 375F and grease a baking sheet. I just sprayed mine with a little canola oil.  I mixed all the dry ingredients in a bowl, then added that to the butter.  I don’t think I needed to dirty two bowls.  Instead, mix the sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt and butter in a bowl.  Now add the flour and mix fairly well.

If you’re just interested in the bread, you can skip this next part.  A little over a week ago, my sister and her family moved to Atlanta, and I ended up with a variety of items from her fridge.  Among them were a half dozen eggs.  There were no ordinary eggs.  The chickens were free range.  And vegetarians.  The chickens ate only organic vegetarian chicken feed.  The result, according to the marketing, were superior free range organic vegetarian eggs.  The result for my sister was a whole lot of teasing that she’d buy these overly “green” eco-eggs.  This is the last of those eggs, going into my Irish Soda Cake.

OK, back to the recipe.

Make a little hole in the center of the flour mixture.  Crack the egg into it.  Now dump in the cup of buttermilk.  Stir until you have a slightly sticky, soft dough. You may need a bit more buttermilk to get it right.  I end up with a dough that reminds me of the consistency of biscuit dough. Next, you need a lightly floured surface, as you want to knead the dough for about a minute or two.  Try not to overdo it, or the bread ends up too dense. Shape it into a round loaf and put it on the baking sheet.

Another side note: in addition to the Zen (Vegetable) Garden, I’ve also started a compost pile.  One of the things that really annoys me about trying to “go green” is that everyone out there is trying hard to make money selling you things you just HAVE to have if you want to be green.  One example is the variety of “compost canisters” out there.  These are little canisters that you keep in your kitchen to put your kitchen scraps in for a few days before you take them out to the compost pile.  I’ve seen prices that range from $5 to $40.  Here is my solution to the “kitchen compost canister” - and this is what I put the egg shell into:

Total cost?  One coffee can saved from the recycling bin for a new purpose.  There’s a reason “re-use” comes first in the phrase “reuse, reduce, recycle.”

Again, back to the recipe.  Now you want to take a very sharp knife and cut across the top of the loaf.  You want a sharp knife because you do not want to press down.  Just drag the blade across the top and let the sharpness of the knife and the weight of the knife do the work as much as possible.  You want to make two cuts so the loaf can rise while baking.  As you can see, I cut maybe a quarter inch into the top.

Sorta looks like a giant biscuit, doesn’t it?

Next, take that tablespoon of butter and melt it in the microwave in a coffee cup.  Add about that much buttermilk so that you have a mix of the two.  Brush it on nice and thick.  Don’t worry about any drips, they blacken up while baking and clean up easily.  They also smell great while baking!

Now, bake for about 45 minutes.  375 degrees (Fahrenheit).

You did remember to preheat, right?  Good.  I didn’t.  Sometimes I get so focused on being mindful I forget to be mindful about what I’m actually doing.  That’s why it’s called “practice” I guess!

There are two ways to test to see if it’s done.  The tried and true toothpick method, or tap the bottom.  If the toothpick comes out clean, or the tapping sounds hollow, it’s done.  Ignore the blackened flakes, they brush right off.

The last thing you want to do is cover with a damp cloth and let cool.  I like to cut a piece off while it’s still warm, and slap a bit of sugar free blackberry preserves on it.  Goes well with coffee or tea.  Or water.  Or pretty much anything.  It’s a really tasty snack.

You can either cover the bread with a clean cotton cloth and splash some droplets of water on top, or do what I do and get the towel nice and wet, then wring it out a few times until it’s just a bit on the damp side.

The last thing I want to mention is that loaf of honey wheat in the back.  It took me a while to find something that was economical for storing bread - what I’ve had the best luck with are produce bags from my local grocery store.  I reused one in a pinch, and it left the bread with a slight zucchini smell, but it did a great job keeping the bread moist, fresh and mold free.  The next time I was at the store, I asked them if it would be OK if I grabbed a couple bags every now and then.  So now, those are what I use to keep my bread fresh!

Overall this is a very quick and easy bread to make.  It doesn’t keep very long - a few days at most - so I try to make it when I’m sure it will get eaten.  I’ve taken it to dinner gatherings, and served it beside tea and coffee.  It sure doesn’t taste like a quick and easy bread!  Enjoy!