Tomato Basil Goats Cheese Soda Bread

Ingredients

Serves 6

• 80g sun-dried tomatoes

• 30g pack of basil

• 100g rinded goats cheese

• 420g plain flour

• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)

• 1 tsp sea salt

• 300ml buttermilk

Method

To start just prep your ingredients. Slice the tomatoes into small strips then rip off the thicker stalks of the basil just below the first leaves and roughly chop the rest. Now just dice the goats cheese into thunbnail sized lumps. Everything here can be done uneven and rustic as a soda bread is never going to be perfectly neat, it's part of the charm.

Once that is prepped, into a bowl sift in the flour and baking soda and crumble in the salt. Give that a good mix around then make a well in the center and pour in the buttermilk. Start to bring it together with your hands and when there are no pools of liquid but it hasn't yet started to form a dough put in the other ingredients. Doing it now will keep those ingredient especially the cheese from clumping together so your bread will have a more even flavour with each bite. Now keep mixing until it forms one lump of dough. Unlike a yeasted bread you will never get a perfectly shiny dough ball and it doesn't want to be over worked so when there are no bits left and it has formed a ball you are done.

Now turn on the oven to 180c (360f) and then dust a baking tray with a bit of flour as well as your hands as this will stop the dough sticking to you. Roll bits of the dough into small balls bigger than a golf ball but smaller that a tennis ball and place in the tray touching each other in what ever pattern you desire. Try to make sure each ball touches at least two others as they will attach as they rise and it will help it stay as one piece when you serve it.

Bake in the oven for 45 minutes until golden brown then transfer to a rack to cool for 30 minutes more.

You're done, now just serve on the table and let everyone tear away.