I've just tried to make this recipe from the BBC Good Food site: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/simple-soda-bread. The only variation was I used semi-skimmed milk (2% fat) instead of the whole milk specified. The result on mixing the wet and dry ingredients was a sloppy, gloopy mess, completely unsuited to be "shaped into a ball". Was it because there wasn't enough fat in the milk, or is there likely to be another cause?
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Was your lemon huge and unusually juicy? How much juice did you get out of the lemon (ml)? Did you measure it?– J...Jun 16, 2020 at 13:18
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This is not a complete answer, but I do want to note that this soda bread recipe seems problematic in its use of plain milk. Soda bread usually uses buttermilk, which in addition to being acidic, is quite thick. Milk curdled with lemon juice is acidic, but still much thinner than desired. Using real buttermilk (or even yogurt or kefir!) will make a textural difference.– Benjamin KuykendallJul 3, 2020 at 8:57
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2 Answers
The fat in the milk is a red herring here. At best, you would have to be a professional baker who knows the same recipe by feel to be able to notice the tiny difference made by 2% vs. 3.8% milk in that recipe. I would start in very different directions.
First, was it really a disaster? This is a 80% hydration dough, and that with whole flour - I would fully expect it to be sloppy and gloopy. There is nothing wrong with that. If you haven't baked bread of different hydrations before, or no soda bread (which has lower gluten and so doesn't come together as much), you may be imagining something firm and plastic like pasta dough. This is not what the recipe is about. When they say "shape it into a ball", they don't mean a sphere, they mean a boule. It will be certainly wider than it's tall. Just continue working with it.
If it is too extreme - e.g. it becomes a flat disc, or even flows freely - I can think of two possible problems.
- maybe you didn't measure correctly. The recipe is given by weight, but if you tried to measure by volume, you might have been off. Or you were not perfectly concentrated and by mistake put in 500 ml milk and 400 flour, or a similar mistake.
- maybe you used a different flour than what they have used. While white flour is pretty standardized, whole flours can differ a lot in their absorption ability.
- Update: As per J..'s comment, the amount of lemon juice can be significant for that amount of flour. It might be worth using a smaller lemon, or not that much juice. (Or maybe go with real buttermilk instead of creating a substitute on the fly).
In any case, you can try saving the failed recipe by adding a little bit more flour this time (but don't make it as firm as mid-hydration yeast bread dough).
answered Jun 15, 2020 at 14:27
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Oddly enough we did some soda bread over the weekend and the result was awfully gloopy and near impossible to knead. BUT it came out great, though we use a springform pan so it doesn't spread out too much and turn into Irish Soda FLAT bread. Jun 15, 2020 at 14:40
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@SteveChambers it's not that odd - soda doesn't leaven the same way as yeast does, and cannot work well when the dough is firm. So soda bread doughs tend to be on the wet side, gradually transitioning into batters for savory cakes.– rumtscho ♦Jun 15, 2020 at 14:43
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1@SteveChambers lovely! This means I'm a wizard! And you are one too. Yayayay!– rumtscho ♦Jun 15, 2020 at 19:08
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1It's more than 80% hydration - there's also a lemon. If OP had a large lemon that provided ~75ml of juice, this would actually be closer to 95% hydration. A smaller lemon that produced only 40ml of juice would leave the hydration closer to 88%. Given how wet this dough is already, I think the recipe is excessively sensitive to the variability in the "1 lemon" call. A small or medium lemon is probably all that is needed and a large lemon would be too much. The mixture could probably do with a 1-2h rest at room temperature to develop before shaping, also.– J...Jun 16, 2020 at 13:25
Whole milk is 4%, so double the fat. 400ml of 4% has 16ml of fat while 2% has 8ml of fat and 8ml more water. 8ml more water will upset the balance a bit but shouldn't be enough to make the dough too wet. What is most likely happening is that your wholemeal flour isn't as absorbent, or you made some small errors in measuring.
First I would give it 5-10 minutes to sit and absorb, then I would see if it's still too loose. If it is I would add a small amount of flour, just a tablespoon or two, then knead it a bit, adding small amounts until it stiffens enough to go into a ball. You don't want to work soda bread too much, but a bit of kneading isn't going to ruin it. Also, don't be afraid to have a sticky dough, sticky is sometimes what you want.
