Recipe: Deliciously Quick Cheddar And Rosemary Soda Bread

The moment of truth

We've been making our own bread for a couple of years now but sometimes we're not quite organised enough to have a loaf ready for our day off together on a Sunday morning - times like these call for soda bread! It's a quick and easy bread that requires no raising, it's quite dense (more like a scone) but absolutely delicious with a ploughmans lunch. We grow a patch of herbs in our garden and rosemary is an absolute favourite of ours so we try to put it in everything we can. It just so happens our other favourite ingredient (cheese) is the perfect partner for it.

Feeds: 8 (or 2 hungry Durants)

Time: 40 mins

Ingredients:

600g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp cream of tartar 

A pinch of salt and pepper 

3 tbsp chopped rosemary

200g grated cheddar cheese

500g natural yoghurt
1 egg

Method:

Heat oven to Gas Mark 5 / 200°C (fan). In a large bowl, mix together the plain flour, baking powder, cream of tartar and salt and pepper. Add the rosemary and cheddar and gently stir together. In a separate bowl mix together the yoghurt and egg. Add the wet mix to the dry and bring together to form a dough (it's easiest if you use your hands here).

Split the dough into two equal halves and shape into nice round balls using a little extra flour if needed and transfer to a baking tray. Push the top of each ball down to flatten a little and cut a really deep cross into each (you want to cut to about an inch from the bottom to allow the bread to cook evenly). Sprinkle some extra cheese on top and a crack more salt and pepper if you like and pop into the oven.

Bake for 35 minutes until golden and cooked through and leave to cool for as long as you can stand to before sharing and lathering with chutney and pickles.

Don't forget you can follow us on Twitter and Instagram @eatlikeadurant and on Facebook www.facebook.com/eatlikeadurant