I made bread!

So, for some time now, even before the baking bug hit me, I've been wanting to make some bread. But I've been lacking both yeast and a decent bread flour, and hadn't motivated myself to request it, given it's limited utility outside of, well, making bread.

Then yesterday it dawned on me: Irish soda bread. Having pretty much been adopted in part because of a lack of harder wheat making yeast-risen breads infeasible, it was thusly a perfect option for a bread I could make without going out of my way to get a bunch of stuff I didn't have in my house.

I dug around for some recipes, and was initially deflected by the requirement of buttermilk, but then I again thought back to the words of my great teacher, on how to substitute it with some normal milk, acidified with some vinegar or lemon juice.

The Wikipedia article led me to a wonderful site with the lofty title of The Society for the Preservation of Soda Bread, whose author has dedicated himself to disseminating actual authentic recipes for traditional Irish soda bread.

So going on his recipe for white soda bread, I set to work, making only the substitution of vinegar-spiked 2% milk in place of the buttermilk. So I suppose I've probably lost points for authenticity thus likely disqualifying me for membership, but hey, isn't making the best of what you have sort of the true spirit of any country cooking, regardless of nation, including soda bread?

Philosophical points aside, after some initialy difficulties in handling the extremely sticky dough, I managed to get it in the oven, and after 45 minutes of baking and about half an hour of cooling time, I can say that regardless of whether it's authentic, the one thing it definitely is, is damn tasty. Denser than I expected, but still fluffy, with a unique flavor and aroma entirely unlike any bread I've ever consumed.

It succeeds at what I think of as the ultimate test of any bread: You can eat it plain. Yeah, I probably will experiment with a little butter or jam or maybe something really wild, but when it comes right down to it, I can and have just eaten it cut right off the loaf.

In fact I think I may just go do that now.