quilting101 wrote:
THANKS! I love this forum I am learning a whole new vocabulary...

Hi Bren, I am loving your photos! Here are the ingredients for the onion seed bread:

RITA'S ONION-SEED SODA BREAD
2 handfuls oat bran
2 handfuls wheatgerm
Make up to 1 lb with plain white flour
2 teaspoons onion seeds and enough to sprinkle on the top
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (sieved)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon caster sugar
16 fl oz buttermilk

Heat the oven to 220ºC/425ºF
Put all the dry ingredients into a bowl. Mix together with a whisk. Pour the buttermilk into a well in the centre and mix together until all the ingredients are combined to make a very sticky dough. If it's a little dry add some more buttermilk and if it's all gone just add a little milk. Put into a 2lb loaf tin and sprinkle more onion seeds on top. Bake for 45 mins until the bottom sounds hollow when tapped. Take off baking parchment and allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

You can make all sorts of variations of this. You don't have to add the oat bran and wheatgerm - you can make it with all plain white flour. You could use onion salt instead of regular salt and make it 1 teaspoon instead. A favourite here is raisin white soda where we add about 2 oz raisins to the mix before adding the buttermilk. My mother remembers her mother making a ginger version with crystalized ginger and white sugar on the top. I make this for her sometimes.

Hope it works out for you. The onion seed bread is my kids favourite for school lunches with cheese and ham. It's also great with a hearty soup.
Enjoy.

Rita what do you change for oinon bread instead of brown bread? Just the flour and topping? They both look yummy and I will try them both I think, I think!

Millboroquilter wrote:

Molasses is called treacle. Blackstrap molasses is black treacle.
Jenny in Oz

And this is what the bread should look like when you cut into it:


It will keep for about 3 days - if it lasts that long!

I am off to make some bread now.
Cheerypip!

Guess it's time for my Brown Soda Bread recipe!

RITA'S IRISH BROWN BREAD

8oz stoneground wholewheat flour
2 handfuls oat bran
2 handfuls wheatgerm (toasted or untoasted)
Make up to 1lb with plain white flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (bread soda)(sieved)
1 teaspoon caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
16 fl oz buttermilk

METHOD:
Preheat the oven to 220ºC/425ºF
Put all the dry ingredients into a large bowl and mix together with a whisk. Make a well in the centre of the flour with a wooden spoon. Pour all the buttermilk at one time into the centre of the flour and mix with a wooden spoon. It should look like this when you have mixed it all.


Line a 2lb loaf tin with baking parchment and fill with the mixture. Sprinkle the top with sesame seeds or oatmeal or your personal favourite. This is what it should look like before it goes into the oven. The one on the right is brown bread the one on the left is onion seed soda bread.

Bake in the centre of the oven at 220ºC for 45 minutes. (If you have a fan oven you will need to adjust the temperature according to the manufacturers instructions and it may cook quicker.) Test to see if it is done by tapping the bottom of the loaf. If it sounds hollow it is cooked. It should look like this:
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Take off the lining paper or baking parchment and allow to cool on a wire rack. Best eaten when it has cooled completely.
ENJOY!

Millboroquilter wrote:
I think, molasses.

Good link Roseanne, I was reading the soda bread and really think I will try it when I get a hold of some fresh herbs but I am wondering what "treacle" is... it looks like it might be pan cake syrup???? http://edible-ireland.com/2012/03/14/irish-soda-bread/

I came across this blog, Edible Ireland. Love the name!
And for your perusal, here's a mention of barm brack with alternatives for the fruit:

http://edible-ireland.com/2011/10/31/barmbrack/

All this talk of baking, I'm going to have to get in the kitchen whether I like it or not!!

Karen, sorry for 'raisin' your expectations with the tea brack! If you used self-raising flour and baking powder it can sometimes fall back in on itself. I don't know if that was the case. Also, it is not the kind of cake that rises a huge amount.

Rosemary and Lorna, glad it went well and that you got almost everything sorted. Looking forward to seeing the photos.

Rosemay and Lorna - so glad to hear y'all had a wonderful time, as did the husbands. Can't wait to see photos and also to get Rosemary's take on the weekend. I'm sure she will put a funny spin on everything.

Cathy - if you get a recipe for the cherry, raisin bread, please share!

OK - now everyone can sit back and wait with baited breath to receive our spools and see whose reel we got!! I'm excited!!

DebbieWolf wrote:

Much smaller quantities, than you were dealing with! also I've been mulling over all the information that I gleaned from your and Ritzy's experiences from last year, and working out what could make it simpler and trying to keep things under control - not that we were completely glitch free, but I'll save that for another post

Latest News From Headquarters

as you will have seen from Lorna's post - we have achieved our major combining sort for putting the USA members together with the Rest of the World (they are on separate planets didn't you know )

The bad news is that we are still waiting for Tannes's reels to arrive (they must be doing the doggy paddle from Oz), and since she is in 2 groups, we wil be holding these back until they get here and can be added. Hopefully they will arrive in the next 10 days, because we will be meeting up at the Ricky Tims lecture next week, and can pass them over then. Otherwise I will sort the ones I need and then post the rest to Lorna.

Thanks to the generosity of many of you we have a surplus of approximately 35 reels (and since Lorna & I have lots of other wonderful swag, thank-you so much ) we have decided that we will offer them to any one who wants an extra to make a small quilt for the Althzeimers challange - e-mail Lorna with 'Althzeimers Reel Challange' in the subject line. If only a few respond, you might get more than one, otherwise we will just chuck them in the first envelopes we can find from the list of requests Closing date for these is Tuesday 3rd April!

Further tales of our shinanigans to follow later

Thanks so much, Rosemary & Lorna, for making this exchange possible. It will be such fun to see the assortment of beautiful fabrics in the reels. I am just now working on my HST quilt, with hopes of having it finished by the May 1 deadline for Carol's book. I've really struggled with what to make and it's finally all coming together. I look forward to doing something very special with the reels, now.

I'll look forward to seeing the pictures of sorting day. It sounds like your sorting went a LOT smoother than the SoTTTs sorting! Could it be because you were so much closer to the original 'sorting hat'.