Bord Bia Irish Food Bloggers Event Part Deux

I posted earlier in the week about the truly excellent event I attended last week in Bord Bia.  I left that day armed with an arsenal of new recipes and the first one I wanted to try out was demonstrated by Lorraine Fitzmaurice of Blazing Salads.  I had seen Lorraine many times on RTE's The Afternoon Show, where she regularly appears as their guest chef, but never formed any strong opinion on her either way.  Having seen her demonstrate in person though I have to say I have developed a bit of a girl crush on her.  She is totally lovely, very warm and extremely personable.  Her relaxed manner while demonstrating and talking about preparing food and the merits of choosing healthy, high quality ingredients would lead even the biggest can't cook/won't cook affiliate straight into the kitchen to test their culinary skills.

On the day Lorraine whipped up the following bread in the blink of an eye (honest to God, cross my heart and hope to die) so I decided to give it a whirl last night.  Mr. Boo is a bit of a health freak, when he is not shovelling chocolate into his gob that is, and is mad for a nice bit of brown bread.  I, on the other hand, could not really be described as a health freak, not with a straight face anyway.  I do however steer clear of bread as I know it is neither good for me or my waistline.  Now, when I say I steer clear of bread I mean the horror that is mass produced white sliced pans that fill the bakery aisles of supermarkets countrywide.  I am also not a fan of those really dry, crumbly 'it's good for ya' farmhouse style brown loaves. 

Good for me!  A rogue Sahara like crumb always, ALWAYS, finds it way to the back of my throat in an attempt to choke me everytime I eat a slice so, to appease my insurance company I avoid them at all costs.  You can imagine the horror that struck me when Lorraine very kindly passed around slices to sample last week.  'Ah crap' I thought, if I refuse it I will look rude, if I choke I will look weird, what to do, what to do?  I decided I didn't want to be rude so I politely took my slice and passed them on down the line.  The relief of it.  It was a lovely light, not dry, not crumbly, not chokey (it's a word ok) slice of deliciously healthy bread. 

Result!  Mr. Boo will love me (even more) everytime I whip up a loaf of this baby, and I can indulge in a nice slice of bread whenever the fancy takes me without the dreaded bloat taking over.  The recipe below will yield to loaves (using 2 x 1b loaf tins), it is a cinch to make and your tummy will most definitely thank you for it.

Blazing Salads Bread Co. Organic Spelt Soda Bread

This recipe is for 2 x 680g loaves

Ingredients:
510g Organic Wholemeal Spelt Flour
105g Organic Fine Oatmeal + a little extra to sprinkle on top
14g (2 level tsp) Sea Salt
12g (2&1/2 tsp) Bicarbonate of Soda
20g (3/4 tbsp) Organic Blackstrap Molasses
350g Organic Whole Milk
350g Organic Whole Yoghurt

Note: In Blazing Salads they use Moon Shine Organic non homogenised full fat milk from which they make a thin yoghurt to react with the bicarbonate of soda. For the purpose of this recipe they have replaced this with half and half organic milk and organic yoghurt. They have tried this recipe and it works well.

1. Preheat oven to 220°C.

2. Oil 2 x ½ pound rectangle baking tins.

3. Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl sifting in the salt and bicarbonate of soda making sure they are well distributed.

4. Whisk together the Molasses and Milk, this will ensure the molasses is uniformly missed through the loaf.

5. Whisk yoghurt into the milk/molasses mix.

6. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry.

7. The ingredients should be well mixed together but only enough to bind the ingredients and not to strengthen the gluten in the flour. This should ensure a lighter crumblier texture.

8. The mixture will seem quite wet.

9. Weigh 680g into each tin.

10. Sprinkle a little oatmeal on top of each loaf.

11. Make a deep cut the length of each loaf.

12. Place in the centre of the preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes at 220°C, turn the oven down to 200°C and bake for a further 30 to 40 minutes.

13. Check that the loaf is cooked by inserting a clean skewer that should come out clean.

14. Remove from tins and cool on a wire rack.

Notes:

If you don't have fine oatmeal to hand simply blitz some regular oatmeal in a food processor until fine, and if you don't have a food processor grind it in a pestle and mortar.