Ireland - soda bread

There is hardly any need to say what day March 17th is, nor which country is associated with it. St Patrick has long been the patron saint of the Emerald Isle and the Irish love nothing better than a good old 'knees-up' so his feast day ties in well with a day of eating drinking and parading.

Almost as much revered in Ireland is the national bread. To understand this, imagine yourself a century ago in a tiny cottage with a hungry hardworking husband and ten children. They want bread, and the want lots of it and they want it fast.

With no time to wait for bread to rise, soda bread was the solution. It's easy to make, but because it does not have the keeping properties of a yeasted bread, it stales quickly. This was never a problem though in big families, as every crumb was gone by the end of the meal.

Soda bread is typically made from soft wheat flour, the sort used for cakes or pastries, with lower levels of gluten. Sometimes, the buttermilk is replaced by live yoghurt or even stout. As with scones (because this is basically a scone bread) the dough should not be kneaded.

In Ulster, wholemeal soda bread is usually known as wheaten bread and it is sweetened. In the southern provinces of Ireland, it is usually known as brown bread. See how to make it....

If the dough is rolled out and cooked as a flat bread, it might be called a soda farl or griddle cakes, griddle bread (or soda farls in Ulster). These may be rounded and have a cross cut in the top to allow the bread to expand.  See how to make these...

Whether or not the good saint ever ate these breads, we cannot be sure. But today, every self-respecting Irish person does.

Hungary - Kürtősh (Chimney cake)

Today, Hungary celebrates a special day on 15 March, to commemorate the revolution of 1848 for constitutional demands.

So let's talk about Kürtősh - one of Hungary's many breads.

Of course I’d heard of chimney cakes. Some time ago, I learned that somewhere in Sydney there was a café which made them, but I had no real concept of what they were.

No one said they were Hungarian. No one mentioned they were like a baked doughnut. I don’t even remember anyone disclosing that they are the closest thing to nirvana.

It took a trip to Wellington, New Zealand, and a morning stroll through the city’s Sunday morning riverside markets for me to have my first taste of them when I found a stall serving towers of dough rings, baked golden, lustrous with sugar, showered with cinnamon, crusty with nuts.

I knew immediately what they were, but no way did I realise how they were made. Basically it’s this: a rope of tender pliable bun dough is wound around a thick greased wooden rolling pin, covering its 20centimetre or so length. The dough is anointed with melted butter, rolled in sugar then placed in an open sided ‘oven’ where it rotates in front of the glowing heat-source, baking and caramelising. Think, doner kebabs, to get an approximate idea of the method.

But that’s where the similarity stops. The result is a million times better than the humble doner.

Once cooked, the kürtősh tower is released from its rolling pin, rolled in whatever topping is requested, then wrapped for the next person in the lengthening queue. Once I had mine, I ate it perched on a nearby concrete wall. It was too good to wait another moment for.

Back home in Sydney I couldn't wait to visit one of the string of the (now) four Kürtősh cafes in my town, Randwick, Crows Nest, Surry Hills and, newest, Darlinghurst. Find them all here.

Surry Hills worked well for me, right near the end of Crown Street where it meets Cleveland. Parking right outside, amazing aromas from inside, a table, coffee, what more could I want?

I shared my kürtősh (did I mention that unless carbs are your best friend, a whole one is a little daunting to consume solo) and it had the same effect on my friend as my virgin kürtősh-tasting had on me.

Although the flavour is similar, unlike a doughnut, there is a pastry crispness to kürtősh, in counterpoint to the cooked but tender inner parts. 

The café also had a long display counter of cakes and other goodies. Better still, little tastes were available and I have to say that ‘Mum’s chocolate cake’ was made by a Mum who truly knew what she was doing. None of that chemical, bulk cake mixture flavour, just good home cooking.

Now, you could consume these delicious things forever without a care in the world for their pedigree or provenance, but just in case you need a bit of history with your kürtősh, it is this: the name kürtősh comes from kürtőskalács - a traditional Hungarian pastry famously known as chimney cake. This cylindrical yeast pastry is often sold as street snacks from carts all over Hungary. Once a festive treat, now it is part of everyday consumption. If you are interested in knowing more, kürtősh has quite an interesting past. Read about it.

Bulgaria - Pogacha

Today is Bulgaria's Liberation Day, celebrating autonomy within the Bulgarian Empire in 1878.

A very common bread in Bulgaria and its Balkan neighbours is pogacha. The name may be the same but the results can differ widely. Every place makes its own version, or more than one variety, and so they come in all different textures and flavours across the country.

Some pogácsa are only two centimetres around and two centimetres high; others are much larger. Some have a crumbly scone-like consistency inside, while others are more tender like a fresh dinner roll or croissant. More specifically, in Hungary this snack food or meal item is typically 3 to 10 cm in diameter, though they range in size from the smaller, crispier scone-like "buttons" through to larger fluffier versions.

Pogača is sometimes served hot as an appetizer and/or bread. Hot pogača filled with sour cream (or curd and feta cheese in Turkey and Bulgaria) is considered a particularly delicious specialty.

Watch this video to see how a traditional cornet-pogacha is made. It is not quick so, obviously, more elaborate breads like this are often made for a special family occasions.

Almost all breads like this are made with a basic bun-dough recipe. Because of the additional fat and eggs, the dough is richer and easy to handle and, when baked, it has a fine light texture which makes it ideal for sweet festive breads.

Here is my recipe for the dough:

BASIC BUN DOUGH

approximately 2 1/2 to 3 cups plain white flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon dry yeast

1 cup lukewarm water and milk, mixed

60g (1/4 cup) melted butter

1 egg, beaten

1/4 cup castor sugar

Add the butter to the liquid, then egg, salt and sugar Mix well to combine. Add 1 cup of flour and the yeast and mix well. Leave covered in a warm place for 20-30 minutes until light. Now add enough more flour to make a soft dough and knead until smooth and elastic. Place in a clean greased bowl, cover and leave for about an hour or until doubled.

Now use it in any number of bun and yeasted cake recipes.

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If you have never made this sort of dough, don't be intimidated. When I used to teach bread-making classes, I would put up a big sign somewhere in the room, saying 'Bread-making is EASY!' Because it is.

Try it! Then stand back for the compliments!! Trust me, there will be many.

* Bookmark this page as you will use this dough to make any of a wide range of sweet breads.

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Morocco - Beghir pancakes

Today is Morocco's celebration of independence from France, which it achieved in 1956. 

While visiting the country just over a year ago, I was interested to see how French it still is. Many people still speak French; street signs on the cities are often in French; and some breads are similar too.

However, the country is also African and Islamic, so these influences are strong. A whole swathe of the  world, in its hotter areas, make their breads on skillets or slapped onto the walls of ovens or cooked like these, above, in a communal oven, much like a pizza oven. Flatbreads make sense. They cook quickly and are ideal to wrap around, or fill with, the spicy dishes also common in these places.

In Marrakesh and other cities in Morocco, we came often across crumpet-like breads for  sale as well. Moroccans like them with honey for breakfast, presumably so the honey can drip down into those little holes. I had no idea how they were made, so when I found these pancakes in a book – A Month in Marrakesh, by Andy Harris, published in 2011 by Hardie Grant – I just had to try to make them.



Here they are, altered a little to suit my tastes. Start early as they must sit and rise for some time. They come out almost crumpet-like on top and the word is that the Moroccan people like them with honey for breakfast, presumably so the honey can drip down into those little holes.

This quantity made A LOT of pancakes (I lost count) so I filled the leftovers with rocket and cheese and baked them in a cheese sauce for dinner – delicious!

1 tablespoon dry yeast


1 teaspoon sugar


1/4 teaspoon salt


1/2 cup warm water


2 eggs


150ml warm milk + 1 cup warm water


2 cups fine semolina


2 cups plain white flour


more warm water to make a thin batter


oil to fry

Put the yeast, sugar, salt and warm water in a bowl. Beat eggs in a bowl and add milk and 1 cup warm water. Place semolina, flour and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer and mix together. Pour in the egg mixture and mix well, then add the yeast mixture and beat for about five minutes. The mixture should be like pouring cream, so add enough more water to achieve this. Cover (I use a clean plastic shower cap kept for the purpose) and leave for 1-2 hours.

When ready to make the pancakes, heat and grease a heavy frypan, or use a non-stick pan. Ladle in just enough batter to coat the pan. Swirl it around, and tilt the pan so that bubbles appear on the surface and begin to break. Return to heat and cook for just long enough for the top to set, then transfer to a plate without flipping the pancake. Pancakes may be stacked on top of each other.

Delicious served with honey and butter spread on the lacy side. Makes around 20. 

Watch this video to learn more....

Find out more about Morocco here. 

Wales - Bara Brith and some others

The ancient region of the United Kingdom, in Welsh called Cymru, is a land of dragons, daffodils and leeks – and a surprising number of 'breads'. Today, March 1st, is St David's Day, the national day of Wales. All of this is an excellent reason to feature it today. 

Perhaps the most well-known and popular of the breads of Wales is one that is unyeasted and contains no fat. It is quick and easy to make and tastes delicious. Its name, bara brith, means 'speckled bread' because of the dried fruit it contains. Almost any bakery in the country sells this, and every family, or even town, will have its own recipe – and each of them swears theirs is the best.

Here is the one I used today. It cuts well and doesn't crumble, and is enough like a bread to even make a sweet sandwich, or spread with butter or slices of cheese.

What you may not know is that the Welsh recipe for bara brith was taken by Welsh settlers to the Chubut province of Argentina when they arrived there sometime around 1865. It has since become a traditional Argentinean food known as torta negra which means 'black cake'.

BARA BRITH

3 strong tea bags and 300ml boiling water

OR 300ml strong tea

3/4 cup soft brown sugar

250g or 2 cups mixed dried fruit

2 cups SR white flour

1/2 teaspoon mixed spice

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

pinch salt

1 large egg, beaten

Brew the teabags or make a pot of tea. Remove the tea bags or strain the tea into a bowl, and stir in the sugar to dissolve. Add the mixd fruit and allow to stand overnight, or at least a couple of hours.

Mix all the dry ingredients together and mix in the egg, then add the soaked fruit and tea. You should have a thickish cake-like batter. Pour this into a greased and lined loaf tin and bake in a preheated 170C oven for around an hour, or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Cool in the tin on a rack for ten minutes, then turn out onto the rack to cool completely.

Makes 1 loaf.

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Welsh cakes are another small bread, more like a scone, and unlike bara brith are rich in butter and (often) lard. Watch this video and learn how to make them.

Perhaps the strangest 'bread' in Wales, though, is laverbread. Not in any way a bread, laver is a seaweed (nori in Japan) easily gathered along the coastline. A very old use of it is to boil the seaweed for several hours, then mince or puree it into a gelatinous paste. It is generally rolled in fine oatmeal before frying it and serving with bacon or cockles.

(pic: Jiel Baumadier)

One final dish to mention is Welsh rarebit, hot melted cheese poured over toast, and although not a bread it would, after all, hardly exist without it.