January 17, 2024
For years I said I was a cook, not a baker. I don’t do well with precision but I’m great with improvising. There you go.
When did this change? I attribute it, at least the sourdough part, to Michael Pollan’s chapter on bread in Cooked, whose rapturous account of the glorious, almost holy, nature of the transformation of flour and water into bread gave me shivers. I wanted in.
But I did bake before 2013, when the book came out. I mean, we all do, right, sometimes? Christmas cookies, or a quick cornbread to go with chili, or an attempt at a chocolate layer cake for your friend’s 13th birthday that topples over spectacularly? (Hand raised). Here and there, nothing fancy.
But there was one bread I mastered early and kept on regular rotation.
I brought my mom’s ragged paperback copy of “Joy of Cooking” with me to college, battered spine and cover not entirely intact, for it had one critical recipe: soda bread. While living in dorms with miniscule, poorly outfitted kitchens, I’d casually toss together the ingredients at the beginning of a study session, pop it in the oven, discuss philosophy with other co-eds for a spell, then wow them with a snack right on cue when we reached a natural break in our pre-smart phone attention spans 45 minutes later.
Soda bread is easy as, no, much easier than pie. I should say, a decent soda bread. A soda bread good enough to satisfy a group of college students, hungry for knowledge and something more than cafeteria cooking, anyway. I certainly don’t mean to detract from the skilled hands whose soda bread artistry would put my college dorm loaves to shame. But the soda bread was good back then, good enough to cause a crowd to gather in the dorm lounge, to be demolished quickly and fuel us for another round of heady conversation.
And on a weeknight this January, previous day’s snow still on the ground, chill in the air, small group gathered round the table after the holiday break, it was good again.
We’d spent Tuesday afternoon making snow angels on the empty playfield. Wednesday, it was still frosty, not so much to keep you stuck at home but enough to make you crave something warming when you arrived: stew, bread, simple pleasures. We didn’t have any sourdough and the loaves in progress wouldn’t be ready in time, but I had Costco corned beef simmering in a Dutch oven, all afternoon, savory and tender. It wouldn’t need much else.
I knew just the thing. Casually toss the ingredients together, pop it in the oven, wow folks joining for an easy community dinner with fresh from the oven soda bread right on cue. Warm, dense, drizzled with honey. Good enough to keep us talking at the table as the evening chill settled in outside, good enough to be demolished quickly and fuel us for another round of heady conversation. My college self would have been proud.
Recipe: Cooks Illustrated Cookbook (a style without raisins/currants or other additions, a little less sweet and cakey)
Modifications: None that I’m aware of
Results: Draws a crowd and satisfies from the inside out, just like it always has.
