How to produce the maximum amount of wholesome food from the minimum ingredients was of the essence.

Luckily my mother was reared ‘in the country’ where such skills were acquired as second nature! She passed them on to her older children, for she wasn’t able to do everything in the home alone.

Occasionally now still, one of my own who has fled the nest will call on the telephone to be reminded how to produce homemade wheaten/soda/treacle/fruit bread. To pass on the recipe/ingredients is easy. It’s the skill of being able to turn these into a delicious, nourishing loaf that must be acquired.

If you are interested and can purchase buttermilk where you live, the following are the ingredients and the methods.

WHEATEN: Into a large mixing bowl, measure 12 oz plain flour, 4 oz of Medium Wholemeal, one teaspoon of baking soda, salt and sugar. Mix them with one half pint of buttermilk. Do not over-knead the dough! With the outside dusted with flour so you can handle it, turn the dough into an appropriate baking dish. Use you wooden spoon to make a cross on the cake. Bake it in the oven for ~45-50 minutes at 175º.

SODA: Use the same method as above but the ingredients are even more simple. Your soda bread flour already contains what was earlier added by teaspoon! So, unless you want to further sweeten your bread, pour 16 oz Soda Bread Flour into a mixing bowl and turn into a dough by adding one half pint of buttermilk. Then bake in the oven as above. That’s it! If you want fruit bread, add your dried fruit at the dry stage. Likewise, if you want treacle bread, add one tablespoon of (melted) treacle with the buttermilk. If it doesn’t turn out beautiful, you still have to acquire the ‘magic touch’ – like the ‘greenfingers’ in the garden!

Below is how my mother – and generations before her - learned how to produce homemade bread before the advent of modern ovens!

Oaten bread was made by measuring cupfuls of oaten meal into a bowl and mixing it with sugar and baking soda. Buttermilk was used to moisten it and to make it rise. The bread was then baked in a pot oven. 

The pot oven could also be used for baking cakes or boiling bacon. It was a special pot that hung on a tripod over the open fire. “Gresha” or little sticks or burning embers were taken from the fire and put on top of the lid to given an even heat to the pot’s contents.

Bread could also be baked on the griddle. This was a flat round iron plate that was kept hot by the fire. The bread was placed on it and when that side was done, it was turned over to the other side. Any bread baked in this way was called the “half-arce”.  When one loaf was cooked, another was made until there was enough to last throughout the day. They were left on the sideboard or dresser to cool.