Smoothie, home-made butter and cheese soda bread!

[HeadlessChicken]

I'm supposed to be writing my dissertation, so in true procrastination fashion I have spent the morning in the kitchen

The weather is gorgeous too, and for some reason that always makes me stick on the radio, open the windows and make nice food!

Breakfast smoothie:

1 frozen banana
Handful of blueberries
Handful of raspberries
Handful of oats
4 big spoonfuls of yoghurt
Good squirt of honey
Splash of milk to loosen up


Whizz:

Serve:

 

[HeadlessChicken]

Home-made butter. You will need a mixer / blender, it takes a while in a machine so god knows how long it would take by hand


I've used about 600ml of double cream here, as the end result just fits in my butter dish.

Basically, whip the crap out of it

It will start to take form:

Keep going, and it will begin to separate, you can see liquid at the bottom:

And suddenly it will split completely:

 

[HeadlessChicken]

With cold hands squeeze any remaining milk out, and you will need to salt the butter (unless you are using it for baking). If not going straight into butter dish, wrap in greaseproof paper:

The liquid you are left with it buttermilk:

It would be an utter crime to waste it, so I made some cheese soda bread

250g plain flour
1 tsp bicarb of soda
good pinch of salt
about 200ml of buttermilk
Good grating of cheese

Mix all together, handle as little as possible. Put on floured tray, slice a big cross in it, bake @ 200 ~25 mins.

I'm just allowing it to cool a little, then eat it for lunch with some of my butter


Right, suppose I had best write my dissertation now

 

[HeadlessChicken]

Im pretty impressed, would love to make the butter but im without any mixing machines so that's a no for the moment, never tried soda bread so i think im going to have to give that a bash.

Couple of Q's; Is butter milk essential and if not are butter and milk separate fine or just plain milk?

Is it just a quick mix of ingredients, No kneading at all? or is the dough to sticky?

Plain flour so no strong bread flour etc?

Lastly no rise before cooking or does all that happen in the oven with the use of bicarb and not yeast.

May be ideal for me, having a real mare at the moment trying to get a good loaf out, must not be kneading enough or something because the stuff wont rise properly and ends up very heavy and stodgy. made a cracking chinese milk toast loaf though that didn't have a good enough rise either.

You can use other liquids instead of buttermilk, but it needs to be slightly acidic to really get the bicarb going. I think a 50/50 mix of yoghurt/milk can be used IIRC. I have also used Guinness before (Guinness, apple and cheese soda bread, amazing!).

Nope, no read kneading. Just a good mix. Try and handle it as little as possible (whilst ensuring a good mix. Mix any dry ingredients beforehand). Also need to be quick so when it cooks the bicarb is doing it's thing.

Yup, normal plain flour. No need for the gluten as no CO2 to trap. Essentially think of this a a big savoury scone type thing

No rise, bicarb does it all in the oven.

Soda bread can me made from scratch to loaf out of oven in 30 mins, one of its appeals


As for your other bread woes, no rising could mean not enough kneading, or not enough yeast or not good enough rise.

 

[HeadlessChicken]

What sort of texture does that bread have if you haven't kneaded it? Is it more like a scone texture?

Kanifee, sounds like you're not leaving the dough long enough if it's not rising. Put it somewhere warmer so the yeasties can get busy. Unless the yeast is dead, it WILL rise eventually.

Yeah soda bread is more of a scone than bread, don't expect pocket holes of air. Scone is more accurate altho not as dense.

How much salt would you add to the butter made from 600ml of double cream?

Not sure on weight I'm afraid. I used two big pinches of maldon (ground a little). Depends really, as people prefer different salt levels

 

[HeadlessChicken]

Is this the homemade butter / soda bread from Incestuous Baker Boys on Channel 4?

It's a cool trick, but I'm not sure it's something I'd do regularly as butter is virtually the same price as double cream.

No, I haven't seen an episode where they did that. I've done this for a while, no recipe really, all it is doing is beating cream

And if all people cared about with food is cost compared to ready made, we'd all be eating Tesco value ready meals