Wholemeal Spelt Soda Bread

Wholemeal spelt spda bread - 2

With just four ingredients, no kneading and twenty minutes cooking time, this wholesome little loaf could not be easier to make. Unless, of course, your two year old pulls the glass bowl you’ve been mixing ingredients in off the side and smashes it onto the floor. After two years of next to no television, Nino has recently discovered the delights of Peppa Pig and, more specifically, Mr Bull. A large, loveable rogue, Mr Bull’s primary tasks in life seem to be making noise, digging up roads and breaking things (usually by accident). The perfect role model for a toddler. Needless to say, Nino’s suggestions that ‘Mummy mend it with superglue’ as we stood surrounded – barefoot – by shattered glass were met with a weary raised eyebrow. Continue reading

Quick Courgette + Rosemary Bread

Courgette rosemary loaf

The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight…

[Breadmaking is] one of those almost hypnotic businesses, like a dance from some ancient ceremony. It leaves you filled with one of the world’s sweetest smells… there is no chiropractic treatment, no Yoga exercise, no hour of meditation in a music-throbbing chapel. that will leave you emptier of bad thoughts than this homely ceremony of making bread.’

M.F.K. Fisher, The Art of Eating Continue reading

Seeded Soda Bread

Seeded Soda Bread

Wholesome soda bread studded with three types of seeds

Waking up and eating is a joy. I adore breakfast and can’t imagine a day without it, so it pains me that so many people skip this meal on a regular basis.

While people around the world are making resolutions to restrict their diets, I’d like to suggest you add something to yours. If you don’t eat breakfast every day, why not make the time to do so? It kick starts your metabolism, limits snacking and overeating and is recommended by pretty much every nutritionist out there. It’s so wonderfully satisfying to start the day with a delicious meal, however small, and the perfect opportunity to try a whole host of recipes and flavour combinations. Continue reading

Feta & Thyme Soda Bread

feta thyme soda bread

Quick, simple soda bread – on the table in less than an hour

Like a lot of little girls, between the ages of about four and fourteen I was obsessed with horses and ponies. Posters lined every inch of my bedroom wall (and the bathroom next door), I had a small, but treasured collection of Julip horses (complete with their own stable and jumps) and every year when my birthday came round I’d hope against hope that I’d open up the curtains to find a pony tethered to the gate-post outside (this never, sadly, never happened). Continue reading