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SODA BREAD (another way)
Take two pounds of flour, two pounds of Indian meal, three tea-spoonfuls of baking-soda, the same of cream of tartar, a tea-spoonful of salt and one of sugar. Mix all well together, and stir in gradually a quart of buttermilk. Divide into three or four loaves, and bake in a tin in rather a quick oven for an hour.
A large, plain quick bread — four pounds of dry goods yields three or four loaves — leavened entirely with soda and cream of tartar rather than yeast. A few of its terms and proportions need translating.
- Work fast, then bakeThe soda begins reacting the moment the buttermilk goes in, and cream of tartar dissolved in liquid acts almost at once. Mix only until the dough comes together, shape, and get it into a hot oven; dough left sitting on the bench loses most of its lift.
- Indian meal is cornmealNineteenth-century British and American books use "Indian meal" for maize meal. A medium-grind yellow cornmeal is the closest match; stone-ground is truer to the period than the fine degerminated meal sold for cornbread mixes.
- "Rather a quick oven"A quick oven is usually taken as somewhere around 400-450F. A full hour at that heat may darken loaves of this size, so it is worth starting hot and dropping the heat after the first fifteen minutes.
- The liquid is on the tight sideA quart of buttermilk to four pounds of dry ingredients gives a stiff dough, and cornmeal absorbs liquid as it stands. Judge by feel and add buttermilk by the spoonful until it holds together softly.
- Soda and cream of tartar togetherButtermilk already supplies acid, so the cream of tartar is belt-and-braces -- a common enough approach in the years before commercial baking powder was dependable. Three teaspoons of each in four pounds of dry mix is a modest rate; if the loaves taste soapy, suspect soda that was not fully dispersed through the flour.
- "A tin"This means a baking tin or sheet, not necessarily a loaf pan. Round loaves scored with a deep cross are traditional for soda bread, and the cut may help heat reach the middle of a dense crumb.
- DonenessTap the base for a hollow sound, or take the centre to 200–205F. An underbaked cornmeal loaf stays gummy in the middle and will not improve on cooling.
- Yield and keepingThree or four good-sized loaves, enough for a large household. Soda breads with cornmeal stale quickly; a second-day loaf is best toasted or fried.
Soda bread belongs to the period after bicarbonate of soda became cheaply available, generally traced to the 1830s and 40s, which put a leavened loaf within reach of any kitchen without a yeast barm or a bread oven — a griddle or a modest tin oven would do. Indian meal was a familiar term and commodity on both sides of the Atlantic, cheap imported maize being well known in British and Irish kitchens as well. The doubling of soda with cream of tartar reflects a moment when cooks mixed their own leavening rather than trusting a tin of baking powder.